


Strife-Sensei

by fringeperson



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Naruto
Genre: BAMF Cloud Strife, Don't copy to another site, Gen, different sensei for team 7, he's got big weapons but mostly doesn't use them any more, if no one knows who you are then you're a really good ninja
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringeperson/pseuds/fringeperson
Summary: Team Seven is given a very different teacher, and of course, he has a very different approach to teaching. This in turn will turn them into very different shinobi.~Originally posted in '15
Comments: 3
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

There were two jounin left after every other team had been assigned their sensei, and only one team left. Team Seven. No one wanted to take Team Seven. Some might have thought that was because the team had Naruto Uzumaki, the container of the Kyuubi, on it. Some might have thought that the team was unwanted because of Sakura Haruno, a near-useless fangirl who had only claimed the 'top kunnoichi' position through getting the best scores on the paper tests and doing passably well at the Academy-level gen- and ninjutsu. A rare few might have even thought it was because of Sasuke Uchiha, who had become quite the little emo-with-an-ego since his clan had all been slaughtered.

In truth, it wasn't because of any _one_ of these students. It was because it was all three of them thrown together, and it was also a little bit because of who the last two jounin were.

One of these jounin was the infamous Kakashi Hatake, student of the fourth, son of the White Fang, a prodigy in his childhood and famously known as 'the copycat' as an adult for his ability to copy any jutsu he saw, as it was being performed. There was a very large bounty on his head in the Bingo Book.

The other jounin was not so famous. In fact, most of the other jounin in the room had ever even heard of him. To get to jounin and be unheard of though... that was something that made people sit up and take notice when they found out about it. It meant that this shinobi had been doing his job  _so damn well_ that he was practically a ghost.

In all honesty, the Hokage didn't really want to give either of them a team of genin. They were both too valuable to essentially  _chain_ to the village until the team was ready for C-ranks. Still, he had to pick one of them. Team Seven needed a sensei, and Konoha needed more skilled shinobi in its ranks.

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage, sighed as he made his decision.

“Kakashi Hatake, due to your record of having failed the previous five genin teams who were assigned to you, you will _not_ be given a sixth,” he said.

“Thank you, Hokage-sama,” Hatake answered solemnly, and bowed deeply.

The other jounin sighed quietly. “I guess that means I've got a genin team, provided they pass,” he said, his voice low and soft. It wouldn't be the first time he'd had genin, but it had been  _many_ years since the last team he'd led.

The Hokage nodded silently.

~oOo~

“Team Seven, you are to follow me,” the jounin said, expression grim as he collected them from the classroom at the Academy where all the new genin were waiting. Really all. He was the first jounin-sensei to arrive.

In fact, he was there early. He'd had to wait by the door until the chuunin Academy sensei had read out who was to be  _on_ Team Seven.

“Go on,” the chuunin urged the trio when they all blinked in shock. “Team Eight will be -” he continued as the three rose from their seats and moved to the door where the jounin was waiting for them.

He lead them out to the training grounds attached to the Academy and eyed them when he finally stopped in front of the taijutsu training area and settled against the fence there.

“Alright,” he said as he surveyed the trio he'd been landed with. “This is what is going to happen. In one month, if you haven't proven to me that you have what it takes to be a Konoha ninja, then you will all be sent back to the Academy for the next cycle.”

“What?!” the girl yelped, indignant. “But we passed the Academy tests! We're genin now!”

The jounin raised an eyebrow at her. “Be grateful,” he said flatly. “I'm giving you a month. Some jounin don't even give their genin twenty-four hours to prove themselves. You almost had one such jounin for your sensei. He's sent five teams back to the Academy already.”

The genin all had appropriately horrified expressions on their faces at this bit of information.

The jounin nodded. “Alright. I want you each to name yourselves, and then I will ask each of you a question that I want you to answer honestly.”

“Sasuke Uchiha.”

“Sakura Haruno.”

“Naruto Uzumaki.”

The jounin nodded, accepting that and making sure he could attach each name to the faces properly for later reference. “Uchiha-chan, who is your hero and why?” he asked.

The Uchiha boy looked shocked at the question, and his jaw fell open slightly before working silently. “I don't have a hero,” he finally answered, a dark expression falling over his face.

“Work on that,” the jounin instructed. “Our heroes are those we want to be like, so I want you to do some research when we break up, and I want you to find a hero, and tomorrow I want you to tell me why they're your hero.”

The Uchiha nodded slowly, accepting the order for all that he didn't totally comprehend why he had been given it.

The jounin turned to the girl. “Haruno-chan, why did first you decide that you wanted to be a ninja?” he asked the girl.

Sakura had been all ready to answer “Sasuke-kun is my hero!” because she'd expected the jounin to ask them all the same question. That wouldn't answer the question she  _had_ been asked though, so she had to think back, remember the reasoning of her much younger self, because she had first decided that she wanted to be a ninja  _before_ she'd fallen in love with Sasuke.

“I saw my parents sparring in the backyard,” Sakura said, her voice soft with recollection. “Mama was so strong, and threw Papa into the ground. I wanted to be strong like Mama.”

The jounin nodded in approval. Maybe, just maybe, reminding the girl of why she'd wanted to be a ninja in the first place would motivate her to do better than she had been. Finally, he turned to the Uzumaki. “How the hell did you do that paint job on the Hokage Monument and then evade a team of six jounin for  _three hours_ in that bright orange monstrosity, without any chakra techniques to aid you?” he asked with a gesture to Naruto's outfit.

Naruto smirked a little proudly, rather than grinning brightly. “By learning how the hard way,” he answered, a small measure of pride in his voice. “And actually, orange blends in a lot better in and around Konoha than you might think.”

The jounin chuckled in appreciation of the answer, and nodded in a small show of respect for the boy. “Alright, I guess it's my turn then. I am Cloud Strife. You will call me Strife-sensei, Sensei or Taicho, for as long as you are under care and command. Make no mistake, I am your commander as well as your sensei, and I expect my orders to be followed or you will face the consequences. I have five heroes. One was a mistress of seals and died of old age, one was a passionate woman who died protecting her husband and son,” he said, and gave a glance to Naruto when he said 'son'. “One was a priestess who died for her beliefs, and two were skilled warriors. One was a good friend and my sensei, and he died saving my life. The other inspired me to want to be like him, he was the whole reason I got into this profession, but then he was driven to insanity through unspeakable torture, and  _I_ had to kill him.”

“You killed your own hero Strife-sensei?” Sakura asked, eyes wide. “The man who inspired you to become a shinobi?”

Sasuke and Naruto's expressions mirrored hers.

Cloud nodded. “I did,” he answered solemnly. “It was the right thing to do, however much it hurt me to do it. Now,” he said, and uncrossed his arms and legs, standing up straight where before he had been leaning on the fence. “I don't give a damn what the Academy reports say about you. Each of you need to prove to  _me_ that you're capable, and you can start right now. You will each face me in a one-on-one match. There are two rules to these matches. Rule one: you will not use chakra. Not to enhance your body in any way, not for jutsu of any kind, and I  _will_ know if you do. Rule two: when I say the match is over, then it is over,” he explained. “Is that clear?” he demanded dangerously.

“Hai, Strife-sensei!” the three answered sharply.

Cloud nodded. “Good. Uchiha-chan, you're up first.”

Five seconds in, and Cloud called the fight to a halt.

“I said that you were not to use chakra,” he reminded the Uchiha sternly as he held him upside-down by his ankle. “You disobeyed a direct order from your superior by using chakra to enhance your speed. You will do five hundred squats as punishment,” he instructed, and created a single clone. “My clone will count, and make sure you are doing them properly. Go,” he ordered, and pointed the boy to the other end of the fenced-in area. “Haruno-chan, you're next.”

Again, the fight didn't last beyond five seconds. Or rather, it took Cloud five seconds to defeat the girl before he withdrew and ordered her to her feet to try again. This was repeated several times before he scowled at the girl and ordered her to start doing push-ups under the supervision of another clone.

“Alright Uzumaki-chan,” Cloud said. “Let's see how you do.”

Naruto lasted longer. He was well-practised at getting away from higher-ranked shinobi, though a bit more used to having to deal with groups than an individual. He also used everything he could. He had ninja wire in his pouch, he tried to use it to tie Strife up where he stood. It didn't work for long, but it was a good effort. He attacked with kunai and shuriken, none of which hit their marks as the target was a moving one and capable of  _catching_ the projectiles.

“Not bad,” Strife declared when he'd finally pinned Naruto to the ground, a slightly pleased smirk on his face.

Naruto's eyes went wide at the short but sincere praise from his new sensei. “Thank you, Strife-sensei,” he answered softly.

Cloud nodded and let the boy up. “Sit-ups, five hundred,” he instructed with a smirk.

Naruto took a moment to flop where he was still lying on the ground, but then arranged himself to begin the assigned task, and started counting.

“Not like that,” Strife-sensei said after the first one. “I want you to do them like this,” he said, and sat down beside Naruto, then demonstrated. He had his hands locked at the base of his skull behind his neck, and when he sat up, he twisted so that the elbow of his left arm touched his right knee, then twisted back the other way so that his right elbow touched his left knee, then he returned to the rest position and repeated twice more before he stood and gestured for Naruto to begin again.

It was a long first day for the genin of Team Seven, because as soon as they finished doing one of the tasks Cloud assigned them, they were instructed to begin the task that had been assigned to one of the others. They weren't let go for the day until all three of them had done five hundred each of squats, push-ups and sit-ups – and Sasuke had had another attempt to fight Strife-sensei, this time  _without_ using his chakra at all.

“Not bad,” had been Strife-sensei's verdict when he pinned the Uchiha to the ground a minute after the fight had begun.

~oOo~

The Uchiha had managed to come up with a hero. He'd chosen Danzo Shimura, a shinobi who was both a historical figure and a present power in Konoha – someone who had done a lot of impressive things and  _still lived_ . Cloud had made no comment on the boy's choice, had only nodded in silent acceptance and decided to judiciously keep his own opinions on Danzo to himself.

For the first week after that, Cloud did nothing but train the genin into the ground. That wasn't hard with the Haruno, whereas it took a  _lot_ of work to get the Uzumaki into the same state. He had them doing squats, push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. He had them swimming in lakes and rivers around the village, as well as running laps around the inside of the village wall. The entire wall. And he had them doing chakra control exercises.

Sakura surprised everybody by getting every chakra control exercise straight away. Cloud had her doing them over and over again though, right along-side the boys who were slower with it, so that she would build up her chakra reserves. Naruto was doing them over and over again (even when he could do it) to make his control as instinctive as Sakura's was good. Sasuke was made to continue doing it because, frankly, Cloud refused to give the brat special treatment and let him do something else when he'd benefit just as much from exactly the same lessons as the other two.

There were no fancy ninjutsu imparted to the genin, no genjutsu either. In fact, apart from the lessons on how to walk on pretty much anything, Cloud's lessons didn't involve chakra at all, and use of chakra outside of the exercises was actually punished.

The second week, Cloud added weapon sessions to their training regimen. Kunai, shuriken and senbon, all ninja standards, and all treated as pretty much exclusively throwing weapons. With the exception of the kunai, that's what they were, and the kunai was far from the best melee weapon there was. Of course, they didn't just learn how to properly  _throw_ all of these weapons. Under Cloud's instruction, they also learned how to  _dodge_ them, as well as how to  _catch_ them safely so that they could return fire upon the enemy with their own weapon.

For melee combat, which got added in the third week, Cloud gave them knives.

Two out of three of the kids weren't exactly impressed.

“It's a razor,” Sasuke said frankly as he held the item in his palm, the blade folded into the handle.

“A _man's_ razor,” Sakura added, holding hers between a forefinger and thumb like it was diseased – or perhaps had the hairs of someone's shaving with it hidden inside with the blade.

Naruto, on the other hand, had been basking in the attention and training he had been getting from their sensei, and now a gift? He was over the moon and couldn't wait to learn how Strife-sensei would teach him how to use such an every-day item as a weapon.

“Are you _questioning_ your sensei's decision?” Cloud asked the two, an eyebrow raised slightly.

“No Strife-sensei!” the two answered quickly. They had quickly learned the consequences of questioning him (as opposed to asking him questions, Cloud was more than happy to answer questions), and neither of them wanted to be sent on a ten-lap run around the village wall with a clone of their sensei easily jogging behind them, refusing to let them stop.

“Glad to hear it. Yes, it's a razor. It has one blade and it's _very_ much a close range weapon. The shorter your blade in melee combat, the faster you have to be with it. But you won't even be using these for the first few days. Before that, you've got to learn how to _properly_ escape being struck by such a weapon yourselves,” Cloud said, and produced his own six-inch cut-throat razor. “All of you will put those in your weapons pouch and leave them there until I say otherwise. Uchiha-chan, you're first.”

It was always the Uchiha first. Cloud's reason for this was that it got the stuck-up little emo done first, like ripping off a band-aid, and then he could send the kid to work on whatever the punishment of the day was while he moved on to the other two. And the kid  _always_ did something to incur the daily punishment, though he was getting less stuck-up and emo, and it was getting to be more unintentional mistakes he got 'punished' for now. Cloud also had the Uchiha go first to give the other two a chance to watch what the kid did right or wrong. The girl was slowly learning that her precious Sasuke-kun wasn't perfect, and the Uzumaki always watched intently and did his best to learn from observation – or he had, once he'd asked why he always went last and Cloud had explained it to him.

“No chakra, Strife-sensei?” Sasuke asked with resignation.

“No chakra is right,” Cloud answered with a nod. And then the training in weapon-avoidance began.

The previous week spent dodging flying projectiles had done a little for this, but not enough, and the boy was very soon covered in red lines. Cloud wasn't  _quite_ trying to kill the boy, but he'd certainly have a new collection of scars from this training.

“Enough,” Cloud said when he laid the blade against Sasuke's throat, the boy freezing up at the light pressure. He shook his head and stepped back. “When there's a blade at your throat, you don't go still. You get away from it. Five hundred jumping-jacks, and _then_ you may treat your injuries,” he assigned, and created a clone to count and make sure the activity was done correctly. “Haruno-chan,” he called over.

“Hai, Strife-sensei,” she answered hesitantly, but still obeyed.

She wasn't as fast as Sasuke, but that didn't matter. Cloud kept her dodging his blade for just as long as he'd kept the Uchiha, and it ended the same way – with her freezing at the feel of cold steel on her neck.

“Five hundred somersaults,” Cloud assigned after repeating that you _move_ when there's a blade at your neck, you _don't freeze_ , and had summoned another clone to watch the girl. “Uzumaki-chan.”

“Hai Strife-sensei!” the blonde answered happily, and stepped up.

Again, Cloud determinedly kept Naruto dodging his strikes for as long as he'd kept the other two, and then he brought his blade up to Naruto's neck.

Naruto rolled away from it, spinning even. The action exposed his back, which Cloud took advantage of by slicing clean through the back of the jumpsuit from shoulder to hip, but he was the first to have  _not_ frozen at the feel of a sharp edge against his jugular.

“Good,” Cloud praised another five minutes on, a smirk on his face as he lowered his blade. “You still need work, but that's to be expected this early. Five hundred cartwheels.”

“Hai Strife-sensei!”

The fourth, and final, week of the probationary month, Cloud had them working on stealth and escapology. Again, without the use of chakra to aid them. He had them trying to catch him some days, while avoiding capture themselves, since he wasn't going to just sit there passively, and some days it was purely a hunt on his part.

On the very last day, he took them to the Mission Office.

~oOo~

“Iruka-sensei?” Sakura asked, surprised to see the person sitting at the mission desk. “What are you doing here?”

“I don't _just_ teach at the Academy, Sakura-chan,” Iruka answered, a definitely resigned smile on his face. “Your first mission?” he asked as he reached for a pile of scrolls.

“Yeah,” Naruto answered with a grin. “Make it a cool one Iruka-sensei? Please?”

Iruka chuckled and picked a scroll off the top of the pile. He unrolled it, scanned it, rolled it up again and handed it over to Strife.

Cloud didn't unroll the scroll, but simply nodded in silent thanks as he accepted it and then, just as silently, urged his trio of genin out of the building again.

“That was rude, Strife-sensei,” Sakura scolded. “You didn't even say 'thank you' to Iruka-sensei for giving you the mission!”

“The chuunin in the mission office are used to it from me,” Cloud answered flatly, “as well as pretty much every professional shinobi in the village. Missions are given and received silently. You take what you're given and don't raise a fuss about it because they are your orders.”

“Sumimasen, Strife-sensei,” the girl said, looking down at her feet.

Cloud nodded in acceptance and unrolled the scroll. “Our mission is to track down, subdue and capture a threat within the village,” he informed them as his blue eyes skimmed over the scroll contents.

“A threat to the village?” Sakura asked, eyes wide. “But... it's our first mission!”

Sasuke smirked and his dark eyes gleamed in anticipation.

“What sort of threat, Strife-sensei?” Naruto asked.

“A cat,” Cloud answered.

“A cat?” Sasuke repeated with a sneer, the excited gleam leaving his eye faster than the kid could blink.

“A particularly unpleasant beast that belongs to the Daimyo's wife. It is called Tora, and despite the lack of stripes anywhere but its face, it lives up to its name. Because it is a cat, it is naturally as sneaky as some of the best ninja in the world,” Cloud explained to the children. “This is a D-rank mission, and D-rank missions are for the purpose of _teaching_ _genin_ how to succeed at higher ranked missions within the relatively safe environment of Konoha. Some day you might have another mission where you have to track down, subdue and capture a target, and then you will need all the skills you gained while learning to track down this cat, likely more.”

~oOo~

“So, do they make the grade?” the Hokage asked softly.

“They do _now_ , Hokage-sama,” Cloud answered. “They probably wouldn't have on day one, but they worked well and worked together on their mission today.”

“And how is your own training coming along?” The old man enquired. “I know you spent a lot of time adjusting when you first came to Konoha.”

Cloud chuckled. “And you also know that was a long time ago,” he replied with a wry smile. “I think I've finally mastered medical techniques at last.”

“Your materia are better than any medical jutsu,” Sarutobi pointed out. “Why bother learning at all?”

“For the purpose of teaching the techniques to my genin,” Cloud explained. “I'm the only person in the Elemental Nations who can use materia. What good would it do my students to see me do something they'll never be able to do?” he pointed out. “I'll give them enough _difficult_ goals as it is. They don't need _impossible_ ones as well.”

Hiruzen nodded. “True,” he allowed. “What about your Fuuinjutsu though? That is what you were focusing on when I last spoke to you like this.”

“Then we don't talk often enough,” Cloud said with a chuckle. “You see how I'm not wearing the old harness for my swords any more? I've still got it, but I mostly keep them in seals these days. I'm not a genius like Minato was, but I've had the benefit of Uzumaki teachers and a _long_ time to practice. Gaki,” he said, and tapped the silver wolf-head that shone on his single, black, shoulder-guard. Or it would have shone, if it weren't covered in seals and dulling agent so that no one would notice something shining where it shouldn't.

The aged Hokage chuckled. “Yes, that you have Sempai. You still haven't told me how old you really are, even after all this time.”

“And I'm not going to,” Cloud answered, then gave a derisive chuckle. “I barely remember how old I am myself. When I haven't aged since the day I wound up in this world, why should I bother?”

The old man nodded. “Orochimaru's search for immortality is fulfilled in you, and he has never known it,” he commented. “For which I'm just as glad.”

Cloud snorted derisively. “I'd have died of old age  _long_ ago, if I'd had my way,” he said. “If I'd had my way, I'd have died in the cataclysm that instead brought me here. Don't get me wrong Gaki, I like it here, and I'm not suicidal, but I'd just as soon have been reunited with my loved ones.”

Hiruzen sighed, and dragged their conversation back to Team Seven. “How bad was the Uchiha?”

“Bad,” Cloud answered shortly. “He's getting better, slowly, but it's still revenge that motivates him more than anything else.”

“Haruno?”

“Her parents sent me a gift basket when she returned home after the first day, cut her hair off, and asked her mother to spar with her,” Cloud answered with a pleased smirk. “She's still very much a girly-girl, but she's slowly turning into a kunnoichi.”

“And Naruto?”

“A true pleasure to teach,” Cloud answered. “Give him a little bit of positive attention and he stops yelling for it and starts doing his best to actually _earn_ more.”


	2. Chapter 2

After that first mission, and Cloud's discussion with the Hokage, the genin were back to dodging their sensei's little blade – and he got tougher on them as they slowly improved. He set them a weekly routine: Mondays they did physical training to the exclusion of all else. Tuesdays they worked on chakra control. Wednesdays they practised throwing their weapons. Thursdays they dodged as Cloud attacked them – sometimes from a distance, sometimes from up close. Fridays they worked on stealth, escapology and trapping. Saturdays they got D-ranked missions and an explanation from Cloud about how the 'chores' were useful training for later in their shinobi careers (manual labour prepared them for undercover missions where they would have to pretend to be civilians, spying on the people the worked for, babysitting was practice for escort missions, shopping in a neighbouring village got them a little used to travelling distances and fulfilling the orders they were given without direct supervision of the one who had given them, and of course catching run-away pets had already been explained).

On Sundays, Cloud brought out Academy text books and gave them practical lessons that they'd only ever studied the theory of. It might be finding plants that the books listed as medicinal, or poisonous, or nutritious. It might be a practical anatomy lesson, where he'd create a clone and order the kids to strike said clone in, for example, the kidneys, or the spleen. Or it might be an even  _more_ practical anatomy lesson where he'd bring along an animal of some kind and have the kids kill and dissect it – and then cook it over a fire that they would have to build themselves.

In the four weeks following the Tora mission that had been the genin's graduation exam under Cloud (not that they knew it), he'd had them do another twenty D-rank missions, fitting in as many as he could between sunrise, when he had them meet, and sun-down, when he finally let them go. Pet-catching and shopping missions went fairly quickly, the babysitting missions took as long as they had been requested for, and manual labour missions averaged about three hours each, with an extra half-hour debrief afterwards, where Cloud had the genin tell him everything they had learned about the other people who they'd seen while they worked – this was to improve their ability to gather information subtly.

“You're making them work hard,” the Hokage observed to Cloud when they came to pick up their twenty-second mission. He wasn't always at the Mission desk, could hardly get there for other work he had to do most days, but that day he was.

“Hai, Hokage-sama,” Cloud answered.

“I see that they've done a lot of D-ranks very successfully,” Hiruzen continued. “I know they're still very fresh, but there are more seasoned genin teams that haven't got as many D-ranks. Do you think they're ready for a higher level?”

“Ho- Hokage-sama?!” Iruka yelped quietly from beside his leader.

To the credit of Team Seven, they did little more than twitch at the suggestion that they get off the chore-like D-ranks. Cloud knew that Naruto of two months before would have cheered at the prospect of getting a higher-ranking mission, at least. Now, the three of them remained silent and standing at attention. None of them even turned to him slightly to try and push their luck with puppy-eyes, though he knew all of their eyes had gotten wider in their faces at the prospect of a C-rank.

Cloud was really quite pleased with them for that. Almost as much as he was pleased that he'd managed to get Naruto into something more serious-looking than his orange jump-suit, that Sakura had cut her hair under her own initiative before trading her red dress for something more subtle and practical, and that Sasuke had stopped bloody advertising that he had a bloodline by  _finally_ removing his family symbol from the back of his shirt.

“Hai, Hokage-sama,” Cloud answered after a moment of deliberation. “Team Seven can handle a C-rank.”

“Good,” the Hokage said with a smile. “Then you will be escorting a certain individual,” he said, and held out a slim scroll with the mission details on it, which Cloud accepted. “Iruka, if you would fetch Tazuna-san?” the Hokage requested.

“Hai, Hokage-sama,” Iruka answered, and got out of his seat. He disappeared through a door, only to return a moment later with an old man who was clearly drunk – and still drinking.

“This is Tazuna-san, the man you will be escorting to Wave Country,” the Hokage informed the team.

“Hai, Hokage-sama,” Team Seven answered smartly.

“Pack for two weeks and meet at the North Gate,” Cloud ordered them. “Go.”

The three genin bolted.

“Those children are going to be my protection?” the old drunk asked, incredulous even through his inebriation. “I thought I was going to get super ninja!”

“I assure you, Tazuna-san,” Cloud said with a solemn expression. “My students will be more than enough protection against any bandits we might encounter.”

~oOo~

Cloud and his genin practised moving fast, but thanks to various babysitting missions, they also knew about moving at the speed of the client – and Tazuna walked slowly.

“You have very quiet brats,” the bridge builder noted a few hours of walking later.

“They're genin, not brats,” Cloud answered shortly. “That's what makes the difference.”

Tazuna swallowed nervously and the group continued on in further silence. A few more hours after that, they crossed a small river, and passed a puddle that had no business being there – it hadn't rained recently after all, and it was both large enough and far enough away from the river that Cloud didn't believe for a second that it was the result of someone doing a bit of splashing, especially with the river being several feet below the level of the simple, flat, level-with-the-ground bridge.

Cloud made a short chirping sound by sucking on his teeth for a brief moment, and proceeded to appear to ignore the situation. What he did instead was carefully create a solid clone in the bushes and switch out with it so that he could watch what his genin would do. That little sound he'd made all the warning that they would have that he was stepping out to watch.

Two unknown enemies appeared shortly after he switched out, wrapped his clone up in a strange chain where every link had a blade attached to it, declared “One down,” and then 'killed' the clone, and rather messily at that.

Sakura's eyes went wide with horror as she stepped back in fear.

“Sensei!” Naruto exclaimed, his own eyes wide.

Then the two enemy nin appeared behind and flanking Naruto. “Two down,” they said smugly.

“Wrong!” Naruto yelled at them, twisting as he did so and pulling out one of his kunai. He immediately dug it into the chest of one of them.

Sasuke used a shuriken and a kunai to pin their chain to a tree behind them, and Sakura took up a defensive position in front of Tazuna-san, just in case. It was just as well that she did, since the nin that wasn't being stabbed disengaged the chain and started charging the client.

Sasuke moved as quickly as he could to stand between the enemy and Sakura – and the client – but it wasn't needed. Cloud had seen enough, and decided to let the enemy charging their client slam their neck into his well-muscled arm.

“Urk!” was the exclamation the enemy nin made as he was clothes-lined and dragged back to his partner, who made the same pained exclamation as Naruto pulled his kunai out of the chest it had been thrust into.

“Good work,” Cloud said as he picked up the other nin. He was hurt, but not dead. Naruto had missed the heart, possibly because of the large robes the guy was wearing, possibly because he needed more classes in anatomy. “All three of you.”  
“Arigato, Sensei!”

“Tazuna-san, we need to talk,” Cloud said firmly as he dumped the two by a tree – a different one to the one their chain was still pinned to – and tied them up. He had no intention to leave them like that, but it would do for a learning experience for his genin.

“About?” the old man asked.

“About whether you deliberately lied to Konoha about this mission when you said the risks were thieves and gangs, or if the situation changed without your knowledge for some reason – a reason that you probably _do_ know,” Cloud answered. “These two? They were after _you_ , Tazuna-san. Not me, a jounin of Konoha. Not my students, who are shinobi of Konoha and the legends of tomorrow. You. Which makes this mission a B-rank, rather than a C-rank.”

“Isn't that... out of our skill-level?” Sakura asked hesitantly.

Cloud shrugged. “For you three, yes, just a bit. For me? I'll only call it troublesome if you three make yourselves liabilities,” he answered. “You're pretty good at not doing that though, so we should be fine. So, Tazuna-san, did you lie on purpose, or just not know about ninja wanting to kill you?”

“Gato must have hired the ninja after I went to Konoha,” Tazuna answered. “Please, I can't afford to go back to Konoha and pay for another, higher-ranked mission!”

Cloud waved the old man off. “We're staying,” he assured the man. “The bounty for these two will make up the difference for their presence,” he added, and pulled a scroll out of one of his pockets. He quickly set about sealing the two men into the scroll. The act of sealing them away would, in this instance, kill them, but they weren't worth any more alive, so it didn't really matter.

With a sigh, he stood again and looked at his students and the client. “Let's mosey,” he said, and started off down the road again. “Naruto, come out and take point. Sasuke, rear-guard. Sakura, you stay with the client. I'll move between all three of you.”

“Hai, Sensei!” they answered, right after they got over the shock of him calling them by their personal names, and without the '-chan' suffix. He hadn't done that before, ever.

Cloud would explain to them later that it was about being professional. You don't go yelling a shinobi's family name while out of the village unless they're your enemy.

“Gatou, huh?” Cloud mused softly to himself. He'd heard of the man. He was like old man Shinra, only with shipping instead of electricity, and hiring his thugs rather than training them. Cloud didn't know what else Gatou had his sticky little fingers in to get him so rich and powerful as quickly as he'd managed, but he'd bet there was some illegal activity in there as well.

~oOo~

The boat-ride was quiet, taking advantage of the night and the mist to aid them in going unnoticed through the water-ways. The only talk came in hushed tones from the man who was taking them to Wave, commenting when they should see Tazuna's bridge. All three of the genin's eyes grew large and round, impressed by the sheer size of the thing. Cloud had seen bigger in the middle of Midgar, once upon a time, and was honestly more impressed that none of them had even breathed out a 'wow' at the sight of it. After all, none of  _them_ had ever seen anything like it before in their lives, and he'd only had eight weeks to transform them from loud children with only a very little training into professional shinobi.

“This is as far as I go Tazuna-san,” the boatman said when they pulled up to the edge of a town – one that _wasn't_ where Tazuna himself lived – the next morning.

“Thanks, really, and take care,” Tazuna said to the other man. Then he turned to the ninja. “Now take me home,” he bid.

They'd been walking for about an hour when Naruto, their forward scout, halted, drew a kunai, and threw it into a bush. The sound of the weapon sticking into wood was heard, and Sakura scolded Naruto as he went to retrieve his kunai.

She scolded him louder when it was revealed that there was a rabbit, scared out of its wits, just beneath where Naruto's kunai had struck the tree. It was a white rabbit that, considering the time of year, really should have been brown by now.

“Down!” Cloud ordered them all sharply.

Naruto was already down, but Sakura ducked and Sasuke dragged Tazuna to the ground while Cloud obeyed his own order, only just fast and low enough to avoid getting a sudden, unasked for, haircut as a giant blade spun through the area where they were standing (it wasn't exactly a clearing, but rather a wide section of the dirt road where grass was starting to grow back).

The giant blade travelled back up in its arc and lodged in a tree that was ahead of them. Then its wielder appeared, standing on the handle with his back to them (an insult), looking over his shoulder at them like they didn't deserve his full attention right now, but they had to be dealt with all the same.

“Zabuza Momochi, nuke-nin from Mist, this _is_ a surprise,” Cloud called up to the enemy, stepping forward so that he was between his students and the man who'd just thrown a very large blade at them.

“So is two of my men, the Demon Brothers at that, being beaten by someone who isn't even in my Bingo Book,” the nuke-nin answered. “Hand over the old man.”

Cloud shook his head. “Can't do that,” he answered plainly. “Team Seven, you're on defence. Guard the client.”

“Hai, Sensei!” they answered, and quickly fell into formation around the old man.

Cloud pulled out the tiny razor he'd been using to train his genin and flicked it open, eyes narrowed as they remained fixed on Zabuza.

“You'll need more than that tiny thing if you're planning on fighting me,” the nuke-nin scoffed, and even though the bottom half of his face was hidden, it was pretty obvious he was smirking as well.

Cloud shrugged. “Well, we'll see,” he answered. He hadn't had a reason to pull out his First Tsurugi in a  _damn_ long time, let alone the full Fusion Sword, and however big Zabuza's weapon was, and however big he thought of himself, Cloud knew he was unlikely to need his favourite weapon  _now_ either. More's the pity.

Momochi gripped his sword and swung with it down from the tree and onto a body of water that was near the road.

“Ninpou,” he said, one hand in front of his chin and the other arm extended straight up while he stood on the water. “Hidden Mist no Jutsu.”

It took a tangibly large amount of chakra, but it raised a mist all around them when it had been a fine, sunny, clear morning just seconds ago. The technique also allowed the man to completely vanish in the cover he had created for himself.

“He vanished?” Sakura asked softly, eyes wide.

“Shh!” Cloud answered harshly, and gestured for them to move back, away from the water, and take the client with them. Water was where a Kirigakure shinobi was at home, even a nuke-nin. Probably _especially_ a nuke-nin.

“Eight choices,” Zabuza's voice rang out, echoing from all around as the mist grew thicker. “Liver, lungs, spine, jugular vein, carotid artery, brain, kidneys, heart. Now, which critical hit should I go aft-erk?!”

Cloud hadn't bothered to let the enemy finish intimidating his genin. The man talking gave him something to track through the mist, and while to a civilian it sounded like it came from all around, and possibly it sounded the same to a highly-trained shinobi, Cloud wasn't a civilian, and he wasn't  _just_ a highly-trained shinobi. He was a SOLDIER. A mako-enhanced SOLDIER, with mako-enhanced senses like sight, hearing, and smell.

Couple that with extensive training and practice that resulted in him being even more stealthy than Vincent (who, living or dead, was the best damn TURK there had ever been), and he was a much more experienced killer than the famed 'Demon of the Bloody Mist'.

“Another bounty to help pay the difference in what this mission is turning out to be, and what it was reported to be,” Cloud said as he finished pulling the short blade through Momochi's neck.

Everything but the spine had been severed by that little blade.

Zabuza dropped from his hiding place, his blood spilling on the ground in deadly quantities, and Cloud let him. He caught the sword before it could go too far though. It was a good blade, he wouldn't want it damaged. It also came in immediately useful, as Cloud raised it to block three senbon that came flying out of Zabuza's mist at him – a mist that remained, even though its creator was dead. The Land of Waves had a lot of waterways, so natural mist wasn't at all uncommon, and once an unnatural one was created, it was bound to hang around for a while.

Cloud unsealed his old sword harness and stashed the Kubikirihoncho in its reinforced leather straps. He almost couldn't help but smile at the weight against his back. It was somewhat nostalgic really, almost like having Zack's buster sword at his back again. Almost.

He hopped down from the tree to Zabuza's side and quickly sealed him into the same scroll as he had already used to seal away the Demon Brothers.

“Nothing personal,” Cloud said. “It's just the job. I promise though, I'll take good care of your weapon.”

“ _I_ am Zabuza-sama's weapon,” a voice announced coldly. “I am Zabuza-sama's tool. I'll kill you for taking Zabuza-sama from me, for killing him before he could make his dream come true, and then I will kill myself for having no more purpose in this world!”

Cloud winced. He remembered what it was like to be a puppet, even after all these many, many years. “Can my genin escort Tazuna-san to his house while you kill me?” he asked. “They had no part in Momochi-san's death.”

“They are young,” the still-hidden enemy said. “It would be a shame to kill them so young. They can go.”

“Sensei?” Sakura asked, eyes wide and nervous.

“Go,” Cloud ordered. “I doubt Gatou has a shinobi more skilled then Momochi-san working for him, you should be safe. There's a mission to complete.”

“Sensei, you're not going to... you're not going to just _let_ yourself be killed, are you?” Naruto asked, clearly desperate for Cloud to say he'd kill this new enemy and be right behind them.

“Go, Team Seven,” Cloud repeated.

“Come on kids,” Tazuna said quietly. “Your sensei said to go, and that we'd be safe.”

“That's an _order_ ,” Cloud said firmly. “You're not _questioning_ my _orders_ , are you?” he asked dangerously.

“No Sensei!” the three genin answered smartly, and moved in formation around Tazuna, heading for his house. Even if he got killed, he'd come back as a ghost and order punishments for them for questioning his orders, they were sure.

Cloud sighed once the trio was out of sight, and absently caught the next barrage of three senbon that were launched at him. “You must be very good,” he said. “To try and kill with untreated senbon. The weapon with the lowest fatality rate to any ninja. Now, if they were covered in poison, that would be a different matter,” he allowed, and turned in the direction the senbon had come from, his mako-enhanced eyes picking out the person hidden in the foliage without any true difficulty. In a burst of speed, Cloud launched himself at his new foe, and the hilt of his newly acquired sword was quickly planted firmly in the other's stomach. A quick reversal of the weapon, and he brought the pommel to bear, hard, against the temple of the... child.

Cloud sighed and set about preparing another, much more intricate and delicate seal. One that would keep this youngster  _alive_ while sealed away. Alive and frozen in time. He'd take the time to actually deal with the kid once they were back in Konoha and he had some time. Cloud winced to himself.

He wouldn't have time until the Chuunin Selection Exams, when his team's welfare would be completely out of his hands for a few days as they were tested. That was a few weeks off even  _after_ this mission. If his team all got through to the final round (and he couldn't think of a good reason why they wouldn't) then maybe he'd be able to find each of them a specialised teacher for the month between the second and third tests, and he'd be able to have that time to deal with the kid as well, if the kid turned out to need that much time.

Cloud shook his head. There was no point in planning that far ahead right now. He had a mission to complete first, and a team to look after. He finished sealing the kid into the scroll beside Zabuza, and got to his feet again. Time to go after his team.

They hadn't gotten far.

~oOo~

They were introduced to Tazuna's daughter, Tsunami, when they arrived at the house, and once Cloud had set Zabuza's sword aside, they sat down and discussed the possible enemies they would have to deal with from Gatou while they continued to protect Tazuna. The verdict was that it would probably be a lot of gang-types, a good portion of bandits, and maybe a washed-out samurai or two for personal bodyguards to the man. In short, opponents  _much_ more easily beaten by the genin of Team Seven than the legendary Zabuza Momochi.

“Alright, things are really getting interesting!” Naruto said happily.

“No they're not,” a petulant voice said from the door, causing the genin to turn in surprise. Cloud had been facing the door, and seen the kid arrive, but hadn't otherwise paid any notice to him.

“Who's this?” Naruto asked softly, more likely thinking out loud than expecting an answer.

“Inari!” Tazuna said happily. “Where were you?” he asked, and held his arms open for a hug.

“Okaeri, Jii-chan,” the boy answered, moving quickly to his grandfather's arms.

“Inari, say hello to them,” Tsunami instructed. “These are shinobi that escorted Jii-chan.”

The little boy looked out at them from beneath his bucket-hat with haunted black eyes. The eyes of a person who had not only given up, but who condemned everybody else who hadn't yet done the same.

Cloud recognised those eyes.

“Kaa-chan, they're going to die,” the boy said frankly, leaving his grandfather's embrace to turn to his mother. “There's no way a person can win by going against Gatou.”

The words weren't said with passion, or feeling of any kind, but they were said with certainty – certainty of defeat.

Naruto laughed. “Maybe, but we're super-heroes! Great shinobi of the Leaf!” he proclaimed.

“A hero?” the kid repeated. “Baka,” he continued with a sneer. “There's no such thing as a hero.”

“What did you say?” Naruto demanded.

Sasuke lay a restraining hand on his team mate's shoulder before he could get out of his seat and attempt violence on the insolent child, though he certainly wouldn't have minded attempting it himself at that moment. Still, they were professionals. They did  _not_ attack the client, or his family, however annoying they were.

“If you don't want to die, you should go home,” the kid advised, and headed for the door.

“Where are you going Inari?” Tazuna asked.

“I'm going to watch the ocean,” he answered softly, and was careful to close the sliding door behind himself when he left.

“Team Seven, you are hereby each assigned one member of this family to guard at all times. I don't care which of you takes care of who, sort it out for yourselves. I'm going out on recon,” Cloud said as he stood from his seat, picked up Zabuza's sword again from where he'd leant it against the wall, and headed out of Tazuna's house.

“What is 'recon'?” Tsunami asked.

“Sensei is going to find out how much power Gatou has exactly, and when he comes back we'll make a new plan based on what he found out,” Sakura answered. “I think I'd better be the one to keep an eye on Inari-san,” she added. “Sasuke-kun and Naruto-kun are both too likely to punch him in the head for acting like he's the only one who has any idea what suffering is.”

Tsunami nodded in understanding, but she still had one question. “Ah, and... what is your sensei's name? He didn't introduce himself before.”

Team Seven shared a glance. Cloud had told them that he was not to be addressed by name in front of civilians, ever. That shinobi were ghosts, they got their work done and moved on without leaving any trace of themselves behind. He would probably come up with some creative, painful-but-good-for-them punishment if he found out they'd given his name. And he would find out.

“Sensei doesn't like giving out his name,” Naruto answered, the silently elected spokesperson for this matter. “Sumimasen, just call him 'Sensei',” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Cloud was found by the members of both his team and Tazuna's household in the kitchen with a  _lot_ of paper spread out on the table before him.

“Ohayo, Sensei,” Tsunami greeted.

“Ohayo, Tsunami-san, and sumimasen. I'll clear the table,” he said, and quickly shifted the many piles of paper into one tall stack, which he sealed into a standard storage scroll – rather than the scroll he'd stuffed three dead bodies and one living one into.

“What was with all the papers Sensei?” Naruto asked, curious as he plopped down at the table along with the family member he had been designated to guard (Tazuna, Sasuke got Tsunami).

“Just some things that the Hokage needs to know,” Cloud answered. “Nothing that will affect this mission though, more long-term stuff.”

“Uh, what sort of stuff Sensei?” Naruto asked. “I wanna be Hokage some day, so... could you teach me about the things a Hokage needs to know?”

Cloud chuckled. “That's a lot of stuff,” he informed the other blonde. “The Hokage needs to know politics inside and out, and he needs to have a good head for business as well as be a good leader and strong shinobi. Toughest of all, a Hokage needs to know when to make the tough decisions, like who among all the ninja he cares for gets sent on the mission that could get them killed.”

“That's a lot of responsibilities Sensei,” Sakura noted softly.

“I can do it, -ttebayo!” Naruto said through grit teeth.

Cloud thumped the boy's head. “That's for the verbal tick,” he said flatly, simply informing the child, letting him know why he'd been hit calmly and without prejudice. He'd been working on beating the '-ttebayo' out of the kid, literally, but had met with only partial success. “And I'm not saying you can't, but it's a lot of book-work, which I don't think you've ever displayed any patience for in the past.”

“Ehehe,” Naruto chuckled weakly as he rubbed the new lump on his head sheepishly. “Maybe I could set a kage-bunshin to reading the books while I train?” he suggested, having been enlightened to the training possibilities of his clones fairly quickly, since Cloud always had him make five on chakra-exercise day.

Cloud shook his head, a hint of an amused smile on his face. “With the exception of a suicide technique, no clone will ever do something that its creator wouldn't do,” he answered. “And even then, the original has got to  _learn_ the suicide technique before the clone can use it, and learning will demonstrate a willingness to use it yourself if the situation is bad enough.”

Naruto nodded solemnly in understanding, and the rest of breakfast passed in silence.

Well, until one of Tazuna's workforce charged in, panting, and eyes huge in his face.

“Tazuna-san! You must come quickly!”

“Is something wrong with the bridge?” the old man asked, standing from the table without finishing his breakfast.

Naruto shovelled the last of his into his mouth and stood as well, ready to do his duty as the man's guard.

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you,” the other man said. “You must come see! Tsunami-chan, Inari-chan, you're going to want to see this too,” he added.

“For heaven's sake man, what is it?” Tazuna demanded.

“Gatou's _dead_!”

For a moment, the family (and the genin) were frozen by the surprise of this statement, before they all started moving as quickly as they could to be done with breakfast and out the door to see for themselves if what the man said was true.

Only Cloud didn't react at all. He remained in his seat and continued to calmly eat his breakfast, and when he was the only one left, he created a clone to start clearing away the breakfast things, so that he could lay out all the papers on the table again. Gatou had been an excellent businessman, for all that he had also been a tyrant, and had kept immaculate records of even his illegal activities, though of course, those records hadn't been kept in the same filing cabinet as all of his  _legal_ business documents.

His liquid assets had been stored in a different place again. Gatou didn't trust banks, it seemed, and preferred to keep all his money in five different hidden safes. Well, now it was all stored in a sealing scroll in Cloud's pack.

He hadn't done anything about the thugs though. His genin needed something to really cut their teeth on, and roughly a hundred freshly unemployed thugs would be good for that. He'd even left the few reject samurai alive. If they showed up and tried to cause problems within his sights, then he'd deal with them, but at the time they just hadn't been worth the bother.

The clone, its work cleaning up done, went out to keep an eye on Team Seven, the client, and his family. It really wouldn't do for them to let their guard down and be killed by bandits just because they thought they were safe, now that the man who'd been paying them was dead.

Not only was he dead, but Cloud had even gone to far as to string up his body in a public place, so that all the people of Wave would be able to see him – crucified beside the bridge.

~oOo~

A week later, when the bridge was finished, Team Seven prepared to leave, each of the young genin with a new set of shadows in their eyes. They'd made their 'first kills' on this mission. Yes, Cloud had taught them how to kill using unresisting clones and small (sedated) animals, but this time they had actually killed someone who had been trying to kill them. That made a fair bit of difference, especially since he'd only taught them the most rudimentary techniques for killing with the razors he'd given them. They were more experienced with 'killing' from a distance, hitting a bandit in a vital place with a thrown weapon. That didn't really make it any easier though. Still, at least they'd done their killing like shinobi should, in the shadows, quickly and quietly, and not like soldiers, charging with a loud and full-frontal assault.

Team Seven's success at stopping all bandits attempting revenge for their income (they didn't care about their employer  _nearly_ so much as they cared about being paid) also caused the people of Wave to take a generally positive view of them, and of Konoha by association. That Cloud continued to wear the Kubikirihoncho across his back didn't hurt the image either.

As per the mission parameters, they stayed until the bridge was complete, and now it was.

“What will you call it, Tazuna-san?” Cloud asked as they shook hands. “A bridge like this, it needs a name.”

Tazuna nodded. “And I know just what I'm going to call it to!” he answered happily. “'The Heroes Bridge', so that we will always remember that heroes really  _do_ exist, and that even the most horrible situation can change.”

Cloud nodded. “It is a good name,” he agreed. “Wave has a lot of heroes, it is a good way to honour them.”

“Will you come back and see us again, Sensei?” Tsunami asked.

Cloud shrugged. “I can't make any promises,” he answered. “I'm a shinobi. I go where I'm sent by my Hokage.”

“Ne, Inari, be good for your mother and grandfather, okay?” Sakura said to the little boy she had been guarding – even with Gatou dead, they still had maintained guarding the whole family.

“I will, Sakura-onee-san,” the little boy promised with a slightly teary smile.

“Alright Team Seven,” Cloud called. “Let's mosey. I want to be in Konoha by evening at the latest.”

“Hai, Sensei!” the kids answered.

They all four gave one last wave to their sending-off party, turned, and started racing down the length of the bridge, the three genin using chakra to enhance their speed so that their sensei didn't leave them behind.

~oOo~

“I really am impressed,” the Hokage said when they reported back, their mission complete. He was the only one in the room when they reported in. Well, the only one visible. There were almost certainly AnBu hidden somewhere in the room. “Such professional behaviour from such fresh genin... and your first kills, as well,” he noted softly after Cloud had reported how the mission had gone.

“Sensei wouldn't let us get away with anything but professional behaviour,” Naruto answered, before quickly tagging on a respectful “Hokage-sama.”

The Hokage chuckled fondly. “Yes, Strife-san is an excellent teacher and role-model for you three,” he agreed. “But speaking of role-models, my grandson has been complaining lately that he hasn't seen his 'rival' for some time. Strife-san, will you be coming in for missions on Saturday as usual?”

“This week, I think Sunday, Hokage-sama,” Cloud answered. It was Thursday.

“Then one of your missions on Sunday will be to mind my grandson and his two friends. It will be classed as a C-rank, because you will be guarding my grandson at the same time as entertaining and teaching him,” Hiruzen decided.

“Eh?” Sakura asked, confused. “Teaching your grandson, Hokage-sama?”

Sarutobi nodded. “Konohamaru will ask to 'play ninja', I'm sure. With this 'game', I hope that you will help him and his friends further their training. Chuunin who teach at the Academy get C-rank pay for every day they teach. It is only fair that you all get the same,” he explained happily.

“We accept this mission, Hokage-sama,” Cloud said. “What time will you have us collect Konohamaru and his friends?”

“Noon,” Hiruzen answered. “If you could keep him until six, and return the three children to the Sarutobi estate for dinner, that would be appreciated. You'll have time to do other missions in the morning.”

Cloud nodded. “Hai, Hokage-sama.”

“Hai, Hokage-sama,” Team Seven echoed seriously.

The genin were then dismissed.

“I also have three bounties, Hokage-sama,” Cloud reported. “And one live capture.”

“Oh?”

“The 'Demon Brothers', as well as Zabuza Momochi from Kirigakure, and a third party who called himself Zabuza's 'weapon',” Cloud said. “I am happy to give the three bodies for examination, but I request permission to keep the Kubikirihoncho and deal with the last captive myself.”

“When will you do this, and how will you keep a potential threat to Konoha contained?” Sarutobi asked.

“While Team Seven are participating in the Chuunin Selection Exams, I should have time. Until then, I'll keep my captive stored in the special seal that Mito-sama taught me for keeping prisoners in for indefinite periods of time,” Cloud answered.

The Sandaime nodded in acceptance of this. “Very well,” he agreed. “As you please. Dismissed.”

Cloud nodded silently, and saw himself out.

~oOo~

The next day, Friday, Cloud taught his genin more about how to use the razors he had given them – yes, he'd taught them a fair bit while they were in Wave, and they had quickly put it to practical use killing those of Gatou's thugs who had tried to cause trouble. He'd hardly taught them everything though. On Saturday, he started their jutsu training. Until that point, the only thing he'd had them using their chakra for was sticking to trees, standing on water, and occasionally letting them enhance their speed or strength with it – but only occasionally. The genin were all a bit excited when he told them the plan for the day.

Cloud had them demonstrate to him what jutsu they knew, and then ordered them to practice each one until they could do it with only one seal, or less if the jutsu only required one seal, and they had to do it as silently as they possibly could. There was to be  _no_ yelling out the name of the technique from  _his_ students. This was  _not_ something that they had achieved by the time he cut off their practice at lunch. Honestly, he hadn't really expected them to, but he had told them what they were to aim for straight away, so they knew what they were aiming for when they practised in their own time.

He cut off their practice early for a reason though. He had to introduce them to somebody – the man who had  _almost_ been named their sensei and who was the only person in the village who could teach Sasuke how to use his Sharingan: Kakashi Hatake. That afternoon was very conversation-heavy, as Kakashi discussed with all three of them the story of how he'd gotten the eye in the first place, everything he'd learned he could use it for since then, and even the negative effects he suffered if he over-used the transplanted Sharingan.

On Sunday, they were at the Mission Office at dawn. Their first mission of the day was pulling weeds (manual labour, practice information gathering about the client). Their second was collecting rubbish from a river (Cloud had them alternate between standing on top of the fast-moving water, working on their chakra control, and standing  _in_ the river, keeping their balance on slippery rock and resisting the heavy pull, while also keeping their eyes sharp as they sought out anything that shouldn't be in the water, and grabbing it quickly). Their third mission was dog-walking (learning to work with animals, which could be useful for all sorts of things). Their fourth mission was babysitting Konohamaru and his two friends, Moegi and Udon.

“The one who possesses the sex appeal of an adult, and the female ninja from the senior group, Moegi!” the girl said, introducing herself and striking a pose.

“The one who loves dividing numbers, Udon!” declared the boy with a runny nose, before he _also_ struck a pose.

“This village's number one genius ninja, Konohamaru!” declared the Hokage's grandson, taking up his own pose between his two friends.

“The three of us make the Konohamaru Corps!” the three children declared proudly.

“Why do you three have goggles on?” Sakura asked curiously. “Wait... Naruto, didn't you used to wear goggles like these?” she asked, turning to her team mate.

Naruto nodded, and the three children looked very pleased with themselves.

“We copied Naturo-onii-san,” Konohamaru said proudly.

“Oh?” Sasuke asked, a little amused.

“Oh? Is that all you've got to say?” Konohamaru demanded of Sasuke.

Sasuke shrugged. “Not much else to say,” he pointed out.

“Leader, do you have time right now?” Moegi asked, stepping up to Naruto, a hopeful expression on her face.

“Oh no,” Naruto answered. “We're on a mission,” he explained with a smile.

“Aw Boss!” Konohamaru complained. “You never have time for _us_ any more! When will we get to play Ninja with you again?”

“Today,” Naruto answered, his smile stretching to a grin.

“Eh?” Moegi asked, confused.

Cloud stepped in then. “Today, Team Seven's mission is: take care of the Konohamaru Corps,” he explained to the children with a smile.

“Who are you, Shinobi-san?” Udon asked.

“I'm the sensei for Team Seven. You can call me Sensei, or Taicho,” he replied with a smile, “and, I have booked one of the training fields for us to use today.”

“Woohoo!” Konohamaru cheered.

Then Monday was back to the old routine, sort of. Jutsu practice was added in the afternoons, rather than continuing on the whole day as they had before. Since Team Seven didn't really  _have_ a lot of jutsu (nin- or gen- or any other type), it wasn't long before they'd run out of techniques to practice. They all had the henge and the kawarimi, Sasuke and Sakura had the standard bunshin while Naruto had the kage bunshin. Sasuke also had a single fire technique, and Sakura knew one (rather useless) genjutsu. No, even though it took them a while to get these techniques up to a level Cloud was satisfied with, they still ran out of techniques to practice with before the end of the second week of this new training pattern.

Rather than big, flashy techniques though, Cloud taught his genin medical techniques.

“Ne, Strife-sensei, why teach us these sorts of jutsu?” Naruto asked as he struggled with the techniques that required such precise control.

“Are you questioning me, Uzumaki-chan?” Cloud asked, actually genuinely surprised. Naruto was the student who did that least often, of the three. He was always just too keen to learn, or to do.

Naruto shook his head. “No Strife-sensei!” he answered. “I really want to know!”

“Ah,” Cloud said, and smiled a little. The smile quickly became bitter as he explained his reasoning. “I'm teaching you about medical techniques because no one is quite as good at ruining lives as doctors.”

“Eh?” the three students of Team Seven asked all together, confused and surprised by what their sensei had said.

Cloud sighed, and motioned for them all to stop trying to form the medical jutsu and sit.

“Do you remember what I told you about my heroes?” he asked.

They nodded.

“What do you remember?” he asked, and pointed to Sasuke.

“You had to kill your hero because he went mad,” the boy answered.

“That was _one_ of my heroes,” Cloud said with a nod. “My first hero. Do you remember any of the others I told you about?” he asked.

“Ano...” Sakura hesitated. “One was your sensei, and he died saving your life,” she said, then nodded to herself, sure of her answer.

Cloud nodded as well. “For this story, I need you to remember one of my other heroes as well as those two,” he said.

“The other three were women, ne?” Naruto asked.

Cloud chuckled. “Yes,” he said. “The other three were women. A seal mistress, a mother, and a priestess. For this story, the priestess is important,” he said.

“She died for her beliefs, right Sensei?” Sakura asked.

Cloud nodded. “Her name was Aerith,” he said, and began to tell them a somewhat edited version of his story.

~oOo~

Aerith was my sensei's girlfriend, but I didn't get to meet her until after my sensei had been killed, and it is thanks to her as much as to Zack-sensei that I didn't die years ago. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This story begins with an evil man, a doctor, called Hojo.

Hojo had...  _created_ Sephiroth, my first hero. Had created him to be the  _perfect_ warrior.

Hojo had mixed human DNA with the DNA of a monster, and Sephiroth was the result. Sephiroth learned this when he, Zack-sensei and I were on a mission together. As if that wasn't a painful enough discovery for him, the mission brought us close enough to the monster itself that it was able to mentally torture Sephiroth because of that shared DNA.

Sephiroth was strong, as strong as a Kage, and I was only a very fresh genin at the time. Zack-sensei was badly hurt by Sephiroth when he tried to help him. There was no way he could be stopped... but I picked up Zack-sensei's weapon and silently charged Sephiroth while his back was turned, killing him.

It was not honourable, but neither was what happened next.

Hojo came, and he ordered that Zack-sensei and I be taken to his laboratory. He wanted to find out how we had managed to kill his 'masterpiece'. Zack-sensei was dissected alive and sewn back together, I was poisoned and  _then_ dissected and then poisoned again before I was also sewn back together. We spent six years under Dr Hojo's 'care' before Zack-sensei was able to break us both out, but I was little more than a human-sized doll at that point, barely even aware of the world around me.

All because of a civilian doctor.

When Hojo realised we'd escaped, he hired a near-army of thugs, much like Gatou had, and ordered them to mow us down. Zack-sensei tucked me into a safe place between some rocks and then went to kill all those men that stood in the way of our freedom.

Heh, he did it too. But it cost him his life.

I'd finally come to during that fight, and was able to crawl over to Zack-sensei so that I could be with him as he died. He told me how to get to where his girlfriend, Aerith – yes, the priestess I told you about – how to get to where she lived.

I dragged myself there and collapsed on her front step. She nursed me to health when I should have died. Hojo had her killed for her interference in his affairs.

~oOo~  
  


“Strife-sensei, there's got to be more to the story than that!” Sakura objected when Cloud finished speaking.

He nodded. “Yes, there is,” he allowed, “but any more than that is classified, and my life is not a romantic tragedy for telling to all and sundry besides. I told you this story so that you could understand why I'm teaching you medical jutsu rather than kanton, suiton, doton, futon, or any other sort of jutsu. So,  _do_ you understand?” he asked.

The three genin nodded.

“Doctors can be evil, but having someone on your side who can do medical techniques could save your life as well,” Naruto said.

Cloud chuckled. “Something like that,” he agreed. “Are there any complaints about the jutsu I'm teaching you?” he asked.

“None, Strife-sensei!” Team Seven answered smartly, and got back to practising their medical jutsu.


	4. Chapter 4

“Jounin-san, the Hokage requests that all jounin with a genin team report to him at once,” the chuunin informed Cloud when he and Team Seven had come in for their fifth mission that Saturday, and pointed out the window where a very specific hawk was hovering over the village, occasionally crying out – which caught the attention of all the other shinobi in the village who knew what it meant.

“Ah,” Cloud noted. “Alright then. Team Seven, it seems you have the rest of the day off.”

The three genin blinked in shock at that. They hadn't had a day 'off' since they had been assigned to Cloud as his genin.

“Ano... Sensei, couldn't you create a clone to supervise afternoon training for us?” Naruto suggested.

“Baka!” Sakura hissed. “An afternoon off? Take advantage of a chance to do something other than train!”

“Like what?” Sasuke asked, his voice soft but his question pointed.

“Uh... um...” Sakura floundered for a moment. “Shopping? A soak in the hot-springs? Or, ne ne, Sasuke-kun, we could go on a date?” she suggested, batting her eyelashes overtly as she made big, starry eyes at him.

“Pfft,” Sasuke chuckled, or tried to stifle the chuckle. But since it came from him, it was enough to set off the other two, especially since Sakura _had_ been deliberately mocking how she'd been not that long ago, and they all chuckled quietly for a while.

“Actually, a date is a good idea,” Cloud said, a smirk on his lips as his comment cut off the laughter of all three of his genin. “After all, a date is where you get to know more about the other person. We've done a lot of teamwork exercises, and a lot of training, but I don't leave you with much breath at the end of the day to chit-chat.”

“Ne, Sasuke, Sakura, want to go for ramen?” Naruto asked his team mates.

Sasuke shrugged. “It's not my favourite, but okay,” he agreed.

Sakura nodded. “Sure,” she agreed.

But all three of them turned to Cloud rather than leave, waiting for their sensei to dismiss them.

“I'll come find the three of you after the meeting,” he said with a nod. “Go.”

~oOo~

“I called you all here for a reason,” the Hokage informed the gathered jounin solemnly from behind his desk. “You should already know why from the people who are here, though,” he added.

“So, it's that time of year again,” Asuma, Hiruzen's son, commented. “And I've already seen a few teams from other countries in the village.”

“Mn,” Hiruzen said with a nod. “It's one week from now.”

“That's sudden,” was something that none of them said. They were jounin. Experienced jounin. A thing was not 'sudden' unless an AnBu came knocking at your window in the middle of the night with mission orders and you had to leave in five minutes. Besides, all but a few of the jounin present had been working their genin into the ground just for this since the _last_ time.

“I will make the official announcement,” the Sandaime said, and pulled his pipe from between his teeth. “Seven days from now, the first of July, we will begin the Chuunin Selection Exam. I will begin with the jounin of the newest genin, as is customary,” he said.

The other two jounin with rookie teams stepped forward, having been at the front of the gathered group. Cloud had to come from the back of the gathering, but that wasn't any difficulty.

“Your teams all have the minimum eight missions needed to enter, but it's generally advisable for genin teams to have twice that many,” Sarutobi noted, and replaced his pipe to hide the tiny smirk that tugged at his mouth. He knew that all three teams had more than the minimum eight, but teams Eight and Ten only just, while Team Seven had a little over three times as many.

Cloud didn't so much as twitch, remaining stoic. He wasn't the little emo angst-muffin he'd once been, but he was in 'professional mode' right now.

“Are there any genin you wish to enter into the exam among the ones you teach?” Sarutobi asked them solemnly. “We'll start with you Asuma.”

“From the squad that I lead, Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, and Chouji Akimichi, I recommend those three to the Chuunin Selection Exam under my name, Asuma Sarutobi,” he stated formally. Well, as formally as he could with a bent cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth.

“From the squad that I lead, Hinata Hyuuga, Kiba Inuzuka, and Shino Aburame, I recommend those three to the Chuunin Selection Exam under my name, Kurenai Yuuhi,” Kurenai said when the Hokage silently turned his gaze to her, following the same formal pattern as Asuma had.

Then Hiruzen looked to Cloud.

“From the squad that I lead, Sakura Haruno, Naruto Uzumaki, and Sasuke Uchiha, I recommend those three to the Chuunin Selection Exam,” Cloud said, and stopped there.

Hiruzen chuckled. He knew Cloud's dislike for being named, or naming himself. He nodded in acceptance even as whispering broke out in the room.

“All three gave recommendation.”

“It's been a couple of years since rookies have appeared in the Exam.”  
“Please wait!” another voice called, distressed.

“What is it, Iruka?” the Hokage asked.

“Permission to speak freely, Hokage-sama?” Iruka requested, and continued when Hiruzen nodded his permission. “Excuse me for interfering, but the nine who had their names called were students of mine at the Academy. I find it hard to believe that, however talented they had shown themselves to be then, that they are ready for this. Surely they need more experience still?”

“That is why I am entering Team Seven now,” Cloud answered. “Like the D-rank missions in the safety of Konoha's walls that teach my genin skills for later in their careers when they have missions in foreign places, entering them in the Exam while it is held in Konoha is the safest place they can experience this. I don't expect it will be easy for them, but to give my students the home-ground advantage for the Exam? Better this than that they should have to go to Kumo or Iwa.”

The chuunin winced at the very idea of sending his past students to such places. Yes, there was the possibility that the rookie genin could die, even with the home-ground advantage... but the blonde jounin had a point. Iruka backed down.

The meeting moved on. Cloud moved to the side of the room while other jounin stepped up and nominated their teams, and he listened closely to each nomination. For the week leading up to the Exam, Cloud intended to drill his students on exactly what sort of competition they could expect, well, as far as he would be able to find information to drill them on anyway.

The Hokage motioned for Cloud to stay after he dismissed the meeting.

“What did you do with them Sempai?” Hiruzen asked.

“What did I do with who, Gaki?” Cloud answered.

“My grandson and his friends. They've been acting differently since they got to spend an afternoon with you and Team Seven,” Hiruzen said. “I want an explanation.”

Cloud shrugged. “We played 'ninja',” he answered easily. “Each one of the Konohamaru Corps was paired up with a member of Team Seven, and told to track me down and attempt to capture me. I also made it clear to my team – and the Konohamaru Corps – that I wouldn't make it easy for them just because they had young civilian handicaps,” Cloud explained.

“I'll bet my grandson didn't like being called a handicap, or a civilian either,” the Sandaime said with a chortle.

Cloud shrugged. “The boy learned,” he said simply, a slight smile on his face.

~oOo~

Cloud was headed for the ramen stand that he knew Naruto went to for dinner every evening after Cloud released Team Seven from training. The boy had suggested ramen to his team mates, and he only ever went to the  _one_ ramen stand. He found his team  _before_ he reached the stand though. Not only his team either.

“Stop it,” a blonde... Suna kunnoichi said as she looked around them nervously. She was clearly speaking to the boy dressed all in black who was holding Konohamaru up off the ground by his scarf. “We're going to get scolded later.”

“You're going to get scolded now,” Cloud corrected the girl. “Suna Genin, put down the Konoha civilian child before you cause an international incident,” he ordered.

“I'm the Kazekage's eldest son. This brat ran into me,” the genin answered, even as he threw Konohamaru away from himself.

Naruto caught the boy before he could hit the ground.

“And he apologised,” Moegi said, a little fiercely and a lot afraid as she half-hid behind Sakura. “It was an accident!”

“Kankurou,” a voice called from within a nearby tree. “You're being an embarrassment to our village.”

The two Suna genin tensed and turned sharply, as did the Konoha contingent. A boy with red hair stood, upside-down, in the tree.

“G-Gaara...” the boy said weakly, and seemed to break out in a sweat where he stood. “Th-they started it...”

“Shut up,” the red-head in the said sharply. “I'll kill you.”

“I was at fault,” the other boy said, Kankurou it seemed his name was, and it was clear he was apologising to the red-head rather than to Konohamaru. “I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry.”

The red-head turned his head to see the Konoha group, though he stayed in the tree, upside-down and otherwise still. “Excuse then, you guys,” he said, then dissolved into sand. He re-formed in front of his apparent team-mates. “Let's go. We didn't come here to fool around,” he said.

“I know,” Kankurou said softly, and he and the kunnoichi followed the red-head, who was the shortest of them, when he started walking away from the Konoha group.

“Ah, let's observe the formalities please,” Cloud said, disappearing from behind the group to appear in front of them. “The treaty between Suna and Konoha doesn't let you just wander in our village for no reason. I have a good idea what you're doing here, but I'd like it verified please,” he said, and held out his hand for their passports.

The three Suna genin handed over the slips of paper silently, and Cloud checked them.

“I thank you,” he said, and handed them back, “and I wish you luck in the Chuunin Selection Exam.”

The three Suna genin nodded and continued on their way.

“Chuunin Selection Exam?” Sakura asked, green eyes fixing a curious look on her sensei.

Cloud smiled and nodded. “That's right, and I've recommended you three to take part as well,” he said, and pulled out the three passes that would get them in. “Here. Whether you decide to take part or not is up to you, but since the Exam is happening in Konoha this time, I really think you should.”

“Hai, Sensei!” Team Seven all answered together as they accepted the papers with bright smiles on their faces.

Cloud nodded. “In that case, we'll get something to eat and I'll tell you what I can about the Exam and who your competition will be,” he said.

“Can we come too?” Konohamaru asked. “Please, Sensei?”

Cloud gave the three children a long, considering look, but ultimately gave his permission.

~oOo~

Team Seven took one look at the crowd of genin at the door of the Academy – the first stage of the Exam was taking place in room 301 here at three in the afternoon – and decided they'd rather go through the window.

Cloud had  _not_ taught them to use the window rather than the door, either through word or action, but they  _could_ use the window rather than the door, and at that moment the window was more appealing.

“Looks like not every Konoha team nominated by their sensei will be taking the Exam,” Sasuke said quietly, once he'd gotten over the shock at just how many people there were in the room.

Sakura and Naruto nodded slowly, still taking in the sheer numbers. Cloud had told them that, as well as them and their fellow rookies, a further twenty-one genin teams from Konoha had been recommended for participation by their jounin-sensei. He had even given them names and photos of each of the genin in those teams, including their fellow rookies. While there were enough people to fill the numbers those other Konoha teams though, Team Seven noted that some of the people wearing Konoha headbands  _weren't_ people that their sensei had given them the names and pictures of.

“Spies or plants?” Sakura wondered softly.

“Either way, watch them,” Naruto answered just as quietly.

Not long after that, Ino spotted them. “Sasuke-kun!” she called out happily. “I found you!” she cheered as she wrapped her arms around him, her whole weight on his shoulders, as she wasn't touching the ground. “I've been eagerly anticipating our reunion since I heard that I could see you for the first time in a long time.”

“Ino-pig, you're making a scene,” Sakura scolded flatly, her voice level and disaffected.

“Eh?” Ino said, and looked up from her crush to her one-time best friend. “Forehead-girl? What did you do to your hair? And your clothes?” she asked, not releasing her hold on Sasuke completely, though she did let herself drop back to the ground. “You're even uglier than usual, and hiding your big forehead behind your hitai-ate won't make people forget how big it is.”

“Sakura is a proper and professional kunnoichi,” Sasuke countered flatly, and peeled Ino's hands off his person.

“Are you three going to take this troublesome Exam too?” a familiar voice asked.

“Yo, Shikamaru,” Naruto greeted.

“Hai, we're taking the Exam,” Sasuke answered. “I'm a little surprised you guys opted to participate.”

Shikamaru shrugged. “Ino wouldn't let us skip out,” he explained.

Naruto smirked. “And it would be 'too troublesome' to go to another Hidden Village to take your Exam if you didn't come to this one?” he suggested.

Shikamaru shrugged again. “Eh,” he agreed with a lazy nod.

“Yaho, found you all,” a new voice cheered. “So, I see that everyone is here.”

“Yo, Kiba,” Sasuke greeted neutrally.

“Shino, Konnichiwa,” Naruto offered to the tallest member of Team Eight who was standing just behind Kiba.

“Konnichiwa,” Shino answered.

“How've you been, Hinata?” Sakura asked softly, dismissing Ino in favour of talking with the shy girl.

“A-ano, I've been... alright,” Hinata answered hesitantly, and cut a quick glance at Naruto. A blush bloomed on her cheeks as she looked quickly away again.

“Still have a crush on Naruto?” Sakura asked in a whisper.

Hinata's blush deepened and she pressed her index fingers together shyly.

“What, you three made it too? Geez,” Shikamaru complained.

“It looks like all the genin rookies this year are taking the exam,” Kiba announced with a grin, stating the obvious. “How far do you think we can get, Sasuke- _kun_?” he asked, teasing Sasuke a bit by adding the '-kun' that his fangirls had always added when they were in the Academy. That Ino _still_ added with such fondness.

She didn't appreciate the jab, or that Kiba had Sasuke's full attention when he'd brushed  _her_ off, and quite literally at that.

“You seem confident,” Sasuke allowed.

“We trained like hell,” Kiba answered with a proud smirk. “We won't lose to you.”

“Hey you guys, you should quiet down a little,” said another 'genin' in a Konoha headband. He was one of the ones that Team Seven hadn't received the name and picture for from their sensei when he told them who-all from Konoha would be participating, so they were suspicious. “So you're the nine rookies that just graduated from the Academy, right? Geez, this isn't a field trip where you can fool around with those cute faces of yours.”

“Who are you to tell us that?!” Ino demanded, outraged at being scolded.

“I'm Kabuto Yakushi,” the grey-haired, glasses-wearing shinobi answered. “Look around you, everyone here is tense, and that group behind you? They're from Rain, and Rain nin are notoriously short-tempered. If you're not careful, you'll be targeted. But then, I suppose it can't be helped with rookies who don't know anything.”

“Kabuto-san, was it?” Sakura asked.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Is it right to assume you've taken the Exam before?” she asked.

“This is my seventh time,” Kabuto answered. “The exam takes place twice every year, and this is my fourth year.”

“And you haven't passed it yet?” Shikamaru asked. “Is the Chuunin Exam that difficult? This is getting even more troublesome,” he complained.

“Maybe I could give my kohai a few tips?” Kabuto suggested with a smile, and pulled out some cards from his hip-pouch. “These cards have information burned into them using my chakra, information about the Chuunin Exam that I've collected over the past four years. There's about two hundred cards, and they look blank without an application of _my_ chakra specifically,” he explained as he knelt and set the cards on the ground.

He flipped over the top one, showing that it was white, then added his chakra. The front changed to show a map with bars raised out of the card in a glowing, translucent green, like a strange graph.

“This card shows the total number of examinees and countries participating in this year's Exam,” Kabuto explained.

Team Seven all narrowed their eyes at that slightly. Their sensei had been able to tell them how many Konoha genin could potentially be participating because he'd been at the meeting where they were recommended to take part. They had also been made aware of every team that they saw enter the village, which was  _not_ all of them, because they'd been busy training as well. Why and how would a genin have access to these statistics?

They listened as Kabuto posed a theory of why the Exam was held the way it was (to keep the balance of power. Shikamaru declared it all 'troublesome'), and then Sasuke asked a loaded question that he knew his team-mates also wanted the answers to.

“Are there any cards there that have detailed personal information?”

“There are,” Kabuto agreed. “Is there someone that interests you? The information of this year's examinees is not perfect, but I've burned and saved them. I've got information on the nine of you, as well.”

“Eh?” Sakura exclaimed softly, her eyes going wide. “Even about me?” she asked innocently, and pointed to herself.

Kabuto chuckled, nodded, and pulled the card out of his deck. “Sakura Haruno, the kunnoichi that got perfect scores on all of her tests in the Academy. On a team with Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki, completed two C-rank missions and twenty-eight D-rank missions. Your sensei is Kakashi Hatake.”

Sakura and the rest of her team blinked in surprise. No, their sensei was  _not_ Kakashi Hatake. They'd met the man when they came back from Wave though. Strife-sensei had introduced him to Team Seven and they had spent one afternoon learning from him, but that didn't make him their sensei. Then again, Strife-sensei probably didn't let anybody write his name down any more than he told civilians his name, so it was possible that it said on their files that Kakashi was their sensei.

As confusing as that was though, what was concerning was that Kabuto apparently had gotten access to their files. After all, that was the only place where it would list how many of what types of missions they'd done. Kabuto  _could_ be a chuunin plant, put into the Exam by the proctors to help give the other Konoha genin a little bit of an extra leg-up. He could also be a spy.

Unfortunately, they weren't sure that there was a way to tell which he was, and Kabuto wasn't done talking yet.

“Taijutsu skills have improved since graduation, but generally weak in all other areas,” he said.

Ino stuck her tongue out at Sakura then.

“You'd think with a legendary shinobi like Kakashi Hatake for a sensei though, and you would learn more,” Kabuto noted.

Sakura shrugged. “You'd think,” she said neutrally and without any indication that the information he'd just shared with essentially the whole room bothered her at all.

Kabuto smirked a little. “You don't really fit,” he told the girl, and included all the other rookies as well as he swept his gaze over them. “Every other genin here is the best their country has to offer, even the genin from the small, recently formed Oto. Elite genin chosen to represent their country in this Exam.”

Naruto shrugged carelessly. “Sensei wouldn't have recommended us if he thought we weren't ready,” he said plainly. “And wasn't Kakashi Hatake called a genius?” he asked, remembering that from the story Hatake had told him of how he got his Sharingan eye.

“Write this in your cards,” another genin said as he launched an attack at Kabuto.

“The three from Oto,” continued one of his team-mates as he _also_ launched an attack at Kabuto.

“Will _definitely_ be made chuunin in this Exam,” finished their female team-mate with a smile as Kabuto dodged the two attacks – only for his glasses to break and then for him to collapse on the floor and throw up.

There was a minor eruption of smoke at the front of the room then. “Quiet down you punks!” a voice yelled from within the smoke, grabbing everybody's attention. When it cleared, over a dozen people wearing roughly the same uniform were revealed, and a big man with a couple of scars on his face and a big black coat over the same uniform stood front and centre among the new arrivals.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said with a smirk, his tone completely _un_ apologetic. “I am the examiner of the first test of the Chuunin Selection Exam, Ibiki Morino. You three from Oto,” he called out. “Don't think you can goof off before the exam, or you might get failed before the testing even begins.”

“Sumimasen,” said the genin with most of his head covered in bandages. “I was excited, since this is my first exam.”

Morino gave an amused 'hn', and looked out over the room. “Well, let it be known from here on out, you are not allowed to fight each other during the Exam unless given permission by the examiners, and even then killing is  _not_ permitted. Pigs to break these rules will fail immediately. Understood?” he asked lowly.

“Huh, this exam seems so soft and easy,” quipped the other boy on the Oto team.

His quip made the shinobi who had arrived with Ibiki chuckle darkly. They were clearly amused by the boy's ignorance.

“We will now begin the first test of the Chuunin Selection Exam,” Ibiki announced. “Turn in your applications, then take one of these number tags -” he held up a white square with a 1 on it, “- and sit where the number tells you to. Once you're seated, we will pass out the papers for the written exam.”

“A paper test?” Sakura asked softly, a little confused and somewhat concerned as she turned to Naruto. “Naruto?”

“That can't be all it is,” he answered. “Think, Sakura. How many people panic when confronted with a paper test, just because it's a paper test?” he asked, and scowled. “Me among them,” he admitted grudgingly.

“We'll get numbers next to each other,” Sasuke promised.

“How?” Sakura asked as the other rookies moved to get their numbers.

Sasuke's eyes blazed red a moment, showing off his Sharingan, a smirk on his face.

Sakura and Naruto both chuckled softly, and got in line.


	5. Chapter 5

“The first exam has a few important rules,” Ibiki informed them once they were in their seats – Sakura between Sasuke and Naruto, thanks to Sasuke being able to tell her which tile to pick out of the bowl to go with Naruto's.

“I will not answer any questions, so listen carefully. First of all, you all start with ten points. This part of the Exam has ten questions, worth one point each. This is a deduction-based test,” Ibiki explained as he wrote the rules up on the blackboard at the front of the room.

It really was the perfect place for such a test, back in the Academy. It was highly likely that other Academies in other Hidden Villages were set up in much the same fashion as this one, so it would prey on exactly the same nerves as every genin there had felt when they were taking tests in their pre-genin days. It was also conveniently full of seats and had that blackboard that Ibiki was taking advantage of.

“For every problem you get wrong, you will get a point deducted. If you get three wrong, your score is reduced to seven. Second, the pass-fail decisions will be determined by your team's total points,” Ibiki continued.

A lot of genin around the room suddenly went stiff. Particularly those who knew they had team-mates who, while gifted in the field, completely  _sucked_ at paper tests.

“Third, if an examiner determines that you cheated, or do something similar during the test, each action will cause you to lose _two_ points,” Ibiki informed them happily. “In other words, there will be people who will be forced to leave this place without their tests being graded. Those who try to cheat without thinking carefully will only hurt themselves, and their team-mates.”

“We'll 'check' you at any time,” one of the examiners said from where he was relaxing in a chair along the wall, a wicked smirk on his face that made the nearest genin flinch back a little.

“If you are a ninja, act like a first rate one,” Ibiki said with an expression that was dark despite the smile he wore. “If anyone in a team gets a zero, then everyone on that team will fail.”

Sakura and Sasuke both looked pointedly at Naruto then.

He in turn arched an eyebrow at them and created chakra scalpels at the tips of his fingers the way Strife-sensei had been teaching them, reminding his two team-mates effectively that he was no longer that idiot any more.

They nodded, relaxed, and returned their attention to the front of the room.

“The last problem will be given forty-five minutes after the exam begins, and you have one hour for the exam,” Ibiki proclaimed, then checked the clock. At three-thirty precisely, he bid them begin.

Papers were immediately turned over and pencils lifted from their places on the desk.

Sakura immediately started answering the questions – the impressive brain behind her large (often teased) forehead capable of solving such difficult questions.

Sasuke covered his eyes with one hand, as though lamenting the difficulty. In fact, he was placing the only genjutsu that Strife-sensei had insisted he learn and perfect before he'd moved on to teaching them medical jutsu. It hid the red of his Sharingan, letting him use his bloodline without giving away to all and sundry that he had activated it. Of course, he also acted as though he hadn't, as though he were doing as Sakura was – figuring out the answers for himself without cheating at all.

Naruto stared at his test paper and frowned. He'd gotten better under Strife-sensei, but he still wasn't an academic. Hands in his lap, he twisted them like a nervous child, but for an instant among all the random contortions of his fingers, they were crossed in the seal for the kage bunshin – one that he willed to be immediately under a henge to be nothing more than a fly.

It flew to one of the Konoha 'genin' that hadn't been covered by Cloud's briefing on the teams they could expect to see, and watched as this 'genin' answered the first question easily. Possibly even from memory.

It flew out of the room with the answer fixed firmly in its head, dispelled the henge in the bathroom, created another kage bunshin, then dispersed, sending its memories to Naruto. The new bunshin used the henge and flew back into the exam room to find the answer to the second question while Naruto wrote out the answer to the first, his act of figuring out the answers more a careful checking of the memory from his bunshin as he went.

Sakura noted that Naruto was doing okay, and signalled Sasuke on her other side. They'd get through this, and didn't have to worry about Naruto.

At the half-hour mark, a kunai flew through the room and struck the test of one of the genin, causing him to exclaim in shock and just about jump back in surprise. It caught everybody's attention.

“Wh-what's the meaning of this?” the genin asked, standing up.

“You screwed up five times,” answered the examiner who had thrown the kunai. “You fail.”

“Wh-what...?” he asked, eyes wide.

“Team mates of his, get out of here,” the examiner added calmly.

Without a word, the other two stood and did as they were told, and their startled team-mate followed them when they reached the door.

Team Seven watched them go. They were a team of 'genin' that their sensei hadn't given them the names and faces of. It seemed that they were plants. Interesting to note, their tests were left on the tables, face up for any other genin to see.

But suddenly, more genin were being called out. The first 'failure' had made the other genin nervous, and they were slipping up. The more that slipped up, the more got caught, the more that got caught, and called out, the more nervous the remaining genin became.

Well, the remaining genin who didn't have Sakura's brain, Sasuke's Sharingan, Naruto's kage bunshin, or some equally fail-safe method for getting their answers.

Some of the genin had to be physically dragged from the room by the examiners, while others looked like they'd be killing the team-mate that caused them to fail as soon as they could find an excuse, and one guy even demanded proof that they'd caught him cheating five times.

That didn't work out so well for him.

More and more were removed, but there was still a good portion of the teams present, and still a good number of those 'genin' teams that Strife-sensei hadn't told them about still in the room when the clock finally declared that it was quarter-past four.

“It is now time for me to give you the tenth question,” Ibiki informed them. “But, before that, there will be a special rule for this last question.”

A Suna genin returned to the room at that moment, having asked to be excused to the bathroom earlier.

“Oh, good timing. Your little puppet show didn't have to go to waste,” Ibiki said with a smirk. “Sit down,” he ordered.

The boy re-took his seat silently.

“I will now explain. This is a hopeless rule,” Ibiki informed them all.

~oOo~

“Oi, Asuma-kun, Yuuhi-san,” Cloud called as he entered the lounge area where the jounin were more or less confined while their genin took the Exam. “Can I borrow you while you don't have teams to mind?” he asked.

“Eh? Sempai?” Asuma greeted, blinking in surprise at the blonde man. “Hai,” he agreed, and pulled himself up out of his seat.

“Put out the cigarette,” Cloud requested flatly.

“Ano, we weren't ever introduced,” Kurenai said as she stepped up as well.

“Sempai!” Gai called with a happy grin. “I am awed at how you maintain your springtime of youth!”

Cloud chuckled. “I look young because I enjoy my life to the fullest!” he called back.

“Yosh! Sempai is so youthful!” Gai exclaimed enthusiastically.

“It's a genjutsu,” he said to Kurenai and Asuma. “Please don't break it,” he added to Kurenai, knowing she was a genjustsu specialist. “I am hiding some very unpleasant scars and wrinkles beneath it.”

“Worse than Ibiki Morino, Sempai?” Asuma asked. “You know he's the proctor for the first stage of the Exam. We'll all have our genin back before long.”

“Worse than Ibiki-kun,” Cloud promised flatly.

“Who's Ibiki Morino?” Kurenai asked, confused.

“He's a sadist and a pro. He's head of the AnBu Torture and Interrogation squad,” Asuma explained to her. “I doubt there will be any physical torture in the exam, but Ibiki will definitely make those kids sweat.”

“Ibiki-kun knows psychology as well as he knows physiology, and while normally he uses that knowledge in interrogations to get information, right now he'll be using that knowledge to convince genin to give up,” Cloud added. “He'll prey on their fears, drive them into a mental corner, and then bully them on top of that.”

“He finds their weaknesses and brings them to the surface. Heh,” Asuma continued, “and he learned from the best, right Sempai?” he asked Cloud pointedly.

Cloud shook his head. “He's long surpassed my ability in that area,” he said. “Yuuhi-san, if you would be so kind as to raise a genjutsu over this corner so that we won't be disturbed? Asuma-kun, I'm going to need to you grab my captive when I release him from this seal,” Cloud explained to the two jounin.

“Hai,” they both agreed.

Kurenai raised the genjutsu, and Asuma took position over the seal once Cloud had laid it on the ground.

Then Cloud released Zabuza's 'weapon'.

The boy was confused for a moment, but then he saw Cloud. Senbon appeared in his hand in an instant, but he didn't get to throw them. Asuma's arms, like iron bands, wrapped around him and held him tight.

Cloud set about removing all the boy's weapons, even as the kid continued to strain against Asuma's hold. The last thing Cloud did was the boy's mask from his face.

“You are in Konoha now,” he informed the boy softly, almost kindly, and looked him in the eye as he spoke to him. “Zabuza Momochi has been dead for roughly a month. You were his weapon?”

“I _am_ Zabuza-sama's weapon!” the boy snapped. “If Zabuza-sama is dead, then I have no purpose! My dream was to be a useful tool to Zabuza-sama, to help him fulfil _his_ dream!” Tears started to gather in the boy's eyes. “And now I can never do that.”

“It will hurt for a long time,” Cloud said. “But in time the pain of losing him will become something you are used to feeling, and it won't be quite so bad,” he promised.

“What would you know? _Konoha shinobi_ , soft, full of pointless ideals,” the boy hissed at him venomously.

Cloud knelt down to be on the same level as the boy, and leant in close to that he could whisper in the boy's ear. He didn't want the other two jounin to hear what he had to say. “I know because I was once like you,” Cloud answered in a whisper that went no further than the boy's ear. “But I was not called anything as nice as 'weapon' or 'tool'. I was his puppet, until someone else forcefully cut my strings. But they were not kind to me the way I was to you. They made _me_ kill him, and offered me nothing when it was done, no new purpose, no direction. I had to somehow make myself a whole new person, all without help. I was a puppet with cut strings, trying to stand on my own.”

The boy wept a little more readily now.

“I killed Zabuza Momochi,” Cloud whispered. “It was my mission to protect a civilian, his to kill that same civilian. When there is that sort of conflict between two ninja, one will always lose. Momochi-san knew this, and I believe he would have taught you this as well.”

The boy nodded sadly.

“I promised Momochi-san that I would take care of his weapon,” Cloud continued to whisper. “So far, I have kept the Kubikirihoncho sharp, clean, and carefully polished. I have not had time, until now, to see to _your_ care. I wish to correct that,” Cloud offered.

The boy hung his head and didn't look up. “What will you do with me?” he asked softly.

“I will care for you,” Cloud answered. “Because I promised Momochi-san that I would care for his weapons. You will live in my home, I will learn what your skills and strengths are, as well as your shortcomings and weaknesses, and then I will hone your skills to the end I believe you will be most useful. Before that though, I want to know your name.”

“Arigato,” the boy said after a few moments of silence. “Master. I am Haku.”

Cloud leant back from the ear he had been whispering into, looked up at Asuma and nodded shortly to the man. It was safe for him to let the boy go now.

Asuma was hesitant, but he obeyed.

The boy simply collapsed to his knees without the support of the large man holding him up.

~oOo~  
  


The first teams to quit were the ones that were supposed to be Konoha genin, but who Team Seven had picked out as  _not_ being ones their sensei had told them about.

“Plant,” Sasuke decided for the first team that left.

“Plant,” Sakura said for the second.

“Chicken-shit,” Naruto said for the third.

Apart from those quiet observations to each other as team after team left the examining room, Team Seven remained silent. They had gotten this far, they weren't going to back out now. Of the Konoha teams that they hadn't been briefed on, only Kabuto's team remained. Other Konoha teams were still there, but of the suspicious teams, that was the only one that stayed.

There were sixty genin left, only twenty teams, when Ibiki gave them one final chance to back out – a chance that two more teams from Konoha took.

There was still a good spread of genin from the different countries that had come to participate in the Exam. From Suna, from Kusa, from Ame, the trio from Oto were still hanging around, and all of the rookies from Konoha were sticking it out too.

“Nice determination,” Ibiki complimented the remaining genin. “Then, for the first test of the Exam, everyone here,” he paused dramatically. “Passes!” he declared.

“Eh?” Ino asked from the back of the room. “What about the tenth question?”

Ibiki laughed, grinning widely. “Call the two-choice question the tenth question,” he said, still grinning.

“Wait,” called out one of the genin from Suna, the girl from the team that Team Seven had met already. “So what were those previous nine problems?” she demanded. “It was all a waste!”

“No it's not,” Ibiki corrected casually, as he literally turned up his nose at such a perception. “The nine problems accomplished their purpose,” he informed her, and the rest of the room. “To test each individual's information gathering skills.”

“Information gathering skills?” the girl repeated, confused.

Ibiki scoffed, and explained to the room at large what most of them had figured out: that the test was set up so that they  _had_ to cheat to get the answers. He also revealed what much fewer of the genin had figured out: that chuunin who knew the answers had been planted among the testing genin.

“Those who cheated like a fool failed, of course,” Ibiki continued as he reached up to untie the bandanna he wore his Konoha symbol on. “Why?” he asked as he revealed the horror he kept hidden beneath the cloth. “Information can have greater value than life at times, and in missions and battlefields, information is contested with the lives of people!” he informed them all as they stared, most of them with jaws hanging open, at his many burn scars, knife scars, and even the three holes that had been drilled into his skull.

Proof of the torture he had endured in the past.

“The information that an enemy gets after being noticed by a third person will not necessarily be accurate,” Ibiki said as he re-tied the bandanna. “Remember this,” he instructed them when only the two long scars across his face were still visible to them. “Getting incorrect information can cause great damage to your team-mates and village. So, we made you gather information in the form of cheating. We kicked out those who were lacking in that field. That's what went on.”

“But... I still can't agree to that last question,” the Suna kunnoichi said.

“But it is the most important of the first test,” Ibiki answered pleasantly. “The 'take or not take' choice, a painful problem for all of you. You could opt out, and take your team with you, or you could take the question and fail, then be stuck as genin forever. But let's assume that you have become a chuunin,” he proposed to them all. “Your mission is to capture a secret document. The number of enemy ninja is unknown, as are their abilities and armaments, as well as the possibility of traps set up by your enemies. Now, will you accept this mission, or not?” he asked them. “Just because your life and the lives of your team-mates may be in danger, are you able to avoid dangerous missions? The answer is: No,” he said plainly.

Team Seven nodded. Strife-sensei had definitely beaten that into all of their heads. They took whatever mission they were given, and that was that. If the mission lacked detail, or the intelligence was bad, then that sucked, but you made the best of it that you could. You got the mission done, and if you were lucky (or better yet, very skilled), then everybody came home again when it was over.

“There are missions that carry heavy risks, and cannot be avoided,” Ibiki continued to lecture. “The ability to show your courage to your team-mates when needed, the ability to get through a bad situation – that is what we look for in a chuunin, a squad leader. Those who cannot bet their fate in a critical situation, those who give up when given the chance because there is a next year, and let their minds sway over an uncertain future, fools who only carry a light determination like that have _no right_ to become a chuunin,” he said with solemn fierceness. “This is what I was taught by my sensei when I was a genin, and I believe it is true. You here all gave the right answer to the difficult tenth question. You _can_ deal with the difficulties you will face. You have broken through the entrance. The first test of the Chuunin Selection Exam has come to an end.” Ibiki smiled. “I wish you luck.”

“You'll need it,” declared a female voice from the back of the room.

The genin all turned in their seats and stared at the woman who wore a mesh-armour bodysuit that hid practically nothing, a brown skirt that didn't hide very much more, and a tan trench coat that seemed to just emphasise the bodysuit.

“I am Anko Mitarashi, the examiner for the second stage of the Chuunin Selection Exam,” the woman declared with a wicked smirk. “Oi Ibiki, you seem to have let a lot of genin pass,” she quipped across the room. “The first exam must have been too soft.”

“Or maybe we just have a lot of excellent candidates this time,” Ibiki countered with an easy shrug.

“Oh well,” Anko allowed. “I'm going to make sure that half of the teams fail the next stage of the Exam,” she said frankly. “Probably more. Ah, I'm getting excited,” she added with a dark smile that quickly hardened as she looked out over the genin. “I will explain the details tomorrow,” she informed them. “But the second phase will not take place here. You will need to ask your jounin-sensei about the rally point and time. That is all. Dismissed!”

Cloud was waiting for his team at the Academy door when time was up for the first exam, Haku standing at his side like a shadow.

“We passed, Sensei,” Naruto said with a smile.

Cloud nodded. “I expected no less,” he informed them. “Now come. There is still plenty of daylight left for you to train in before the second stage of the exam tomorrow.”

“Hai, Sensei!” Team Seven answered smartly.

“Ano, Sensei,” Sakura added. “Who is this?” she asked, looking past him to Haku.

“This is Haku,” Cloud answered. “He will be living with me from now on. Please treat him kindly.”

Team Seven bowed politely to Haku, and Haku bowed back.

“Now, before we get to training, _about_ the second stage of the exam tomorrow,” Cloud started, and gestured for his team and Haku to follow him as he started walking.


	6. Chapter 6

Team Seven stared at training ground forty-four in a manner that could be likened to a cartoon mouse staring at a cat when it got found out making a midnight feast in the fridge. The quasi-innocent “who, me?” mixed with a pleading “I'm not here, and you don't want to eat me” sort of look. There were several reasons for this expression when confronted with this particular training ground. Signs that said 'forbidden' and 'warning: you may die', a glimpse of a fairly large snake, the generally oppressive atmosphere of the whole area...

“Okay, I'm creeped out,” Sakura admitted. “Sensei's warnings just... didn't do this place justice.”

The two boys nodded in agreement.

“You will be able to experience why this place is called the Forest of Death,” the examiner, Anko, informed all of the genin with a smile. A genuinely _happy_ smile, like getting to experience a deadly environment was something to look forward to. “Before we begin the second stage of the Exam, I need everybody to take one of these,” she continued, and removed a stack of papers from an inside pocket of her coat.

Those nearest were able to read that the paper had 'consent form' written across the top.

“These are consent forms,” she stated, for the sake of those who weren't close enough to read the black in across the top of the page. “Those taking this exam _must_ sign these.”

“Why?” another genin asked a short way away from Team Seven.

“From here on, people will die,” Anko answered easily. “Therefore, we need people's consent before we continue,” she explained. “Otherwise, I'd be held responsible!” she finished with a smile and a light laugh. As though she weren't talking to them about their potentially imminent deaths.

She held out the stack of consent forms, and Naruto, being nearest, stepped up to take the stack from her. He took one for himself and passed the stack to Sakura, who passed it to Sasuke once she had her form, and he in turn handed the stack off to another genin who was standing nearby once he had his form as well.

“While those are being passed around, I will explain what's going to happen here. To be concise, you will all go through an extreme survival match,” she informed them. Briefly, Anko described the geographical lay-out of the forty-fourth training area (circular, heavily forested, with a river running through it and a tower in the very middle, ten kilometres from the fence and the forty-four gates that would let them in). “Inside this limited space, you have to go through a specific survival program,” she said, as she rolled up the small map of the area she had shown those who were close enough to see. “The program consists of a competition where anything goes,” she declared, and swapped the scroll with the map for two other scrolls. “Over these scrolls.”

“Scrolls?” another genin asked.

“Yep. The Scroll of Heaven,” she said, and held up a cream scroll with the kanji for 'heaven' written on it. “And the Scroll of Earth,” she continued, and held up a navy blue scroll with the 'earth' kanji. “You will fight over these scrolls. Half the teams here will get a Heaven scroll, half will get and Earth scroll. To pass, you need to have both scrolls and reach the tower with your team-mates. We don't have all the time in the world for this Exam, so there's a time limit. One hundred and twenty hours, exactly five days.”

“Five days?!” Ino yelped.

“What about food?!” Chouji demanded.

“Scrounge it up yourself,” Anko answered flatly. “The forest is a treasure chest from nature. There should be plenty of food, and if you didn't lean in the Academy how to find it, then your jounin-sensei should have taught you by now.”

“But there are also poisonous plants, and man-eating animals in that forest,” Kabuto pointed out.

Anko nodded in agreement.

Chouji moaned in despair.

“That's why it's called survival,” Ino informed her team-mate, huffing herself at the idea of having to go through this.

“And it's unlikely that even a full half of the genin teams will pass,” commented a boy that Team Seven recognised as Neji Hyuuga – both from their sensei's explaining about other teams, and from when he'd been in the year above them at the Academy.

“As time passes, you will be required to move more,” agreed his male team-mate, Lee, who was rather obviously taking after his sensei in more ways than one. “So, the time to rest your body will become shorter.” The kid smiled then. “This seems quite rough,” he said eagerly.

“And we're surrounded by enemies,” Sasuke observed quietly. “We won't be able to sleep in peace.”

“People will get hurt in the process of fighting over a scroll,” Anko confirmed, “and those who cannot bear this program's strictness will emerge as well.”

“Excuse me,” Shikamaru called out, raising his hand. “Can we quit in between?”

“As a rule, you are not allowed to give up during the exam,” she answered shortly. Anko was _well_ familiar with the Nara mentality, she worked with Shikaku Nara, Shikamaru's father. “You will spend five days in the forest,” she said with a smile, as though she were sending him off on a happy camping trip.

“Just as I thought,” Shikamaru grumbled. “How troublesome.”

“While we're on this topic, here are the conditions that will fail you,” she said. “First,” she lifted a hand with one finger raised. “A team that cannot bring both scrolls to the tower with the three team-mates will fail. Second,” she uncurled the next finger on her hand “The team that loses a team-mate or produces an unrecoverable team-mate will fail. Also, just a note, you are not allowed to look inside the scrolls until you reach the tower. If you become chuunin, you will be handling top secret documents. This test will also determine your reliability. Right, that's enough explaining! We will exchange three consent forms for one scroll at that hut,” she said, and pointed to where three grey-garbed chuunin were sitting at a desk under an awning. “After collecting your scroll and gate number, everyone will begin at the same time,” Anko said, then drew a deep breath and sighed. “Here's a last piece of advice,” she said, as though it pained her to have to tell them what she was about to tell them. “Don't die!”

With that, the genin were dismissed to sign their consent forms – and discuss strategy or potentially backing out of the test with their team-mates – and a curtain was raised around the hut so that scrolls could be collected privately, without having to worry about the competition finding out which scroll they had, or which team member was carrying it.

“Well, they _think_ they're not going to have to worry,” Sasuke corrected with a smirk in Naruto's direction.

“Hee,” Naruto agreed, and swiped at his nose with his thumb, a grin on his face.

A single kage bunshin flickered into being in their hidden little nook, it then henge'd into a fly and took off towards the hut.

“Don't look now Sasuke, but here comes Ino-pig again,” Sakura said, warning her team-mate as her own smirk grew at the sight of the approaching blonde.

“Not again,” he groaned softly.

Sakura and Naruto both laughed softly at him and his unfortunate plight.

~oOo~

Team Seven didn't immediately enter the forest just because their gate had been unlocked and opened. Instead, they each rolled up their sleeves and used one of the medical jutsu their sensei had taught them to make a mark. The forest was a large place, and it was entirely possible that their enemies would attempt to separate them and steal the scroll by use of henge. These marks, hidden under their sleeves, would be better than a password that could be overheard.

Then they started moving, but not deeper into the forest. Instead, Team Seven moved along the fence. The map that the proctor had shown indicated that a river ran completely through the forest, and for a five-day survival trip? They'd need water, and so would everybody else eventually. Let all the other genin charge in, Team Seven had no desire to get thrashed by their sensei for going about things the wrong way.

“When it's a matter of survival, ensure first that you can survive. You can't complete the mission if you're dead,” Strife-sensei had told them yesterday when he'd been briefing them about training ground forty-four, the location for the second stage for the Exam. He hadn't told them what to expect, but he'd given them a few pointed tips like that one.

They hadn't been walking for five minutes when the first pain- and horror-filled scream shattered the tense silence of the forest.

~oOo~

Team Seven had followed the river, when they eventually found it, with silence and caution. They knew that other teams would have to approach the river if they wanted water, and it was also the best option for getting food. Despite a bad start to the exam (despite their caution), Team Seven made it to the tower in the middle of the Forest of Death within the hundred-and-twenty hour time limit, and with the two requisite scrolls.

They were battered, bruised, and had come to the unanimous conclusion that, dangerous as training ground forty-four _was_ , the environment wasn't nearly as dangerous as the first enemy they'd encountered.

Even with Sasuke being... well, they weren't sure what that Orochimaru guy had done when he'd bitten Sasuke on the neck, but they all three agreed that the guy was a crazy person, and despite everything he'd said, Sasuke had _no_ intention of seeking him out. Except maybe to kill him for giving him a really ugly hickey that didn't look like it was going to fade any time soon.

After the guy (who was _not_ a genin, no way, no how!) left, Team Seven had done their best to continue on at a respectable pace to the river. Naruto and Sakura had been forced to carry Sasuke occasionally. Since Orochimaru had focused on Sasuke exclusively in their encounter, the two of them had come out fairly alright, and were able to do that. Small mercies.

They'd stayed on the move, resting only for an hour at a time – at most. They'd encountered the Oto genin team (who had apparently been looking for them specifically) in the early hours of the next morning, and had been able to take their scroll when it was proven that they weren't actually very good at fighting. They were highly specialised, and good at their specialisations, but they weren't exactly a challenge once Team Seven had gotten in close.

Further up the river and closer to the tower, Team Seven collected a couple more scrolls when they found a team of genin from Ame. The Ame team actually had _three_ scrolls, all of the same type. It seemed that they hadn't been lucky in picking which teams they targeted, even if the number of scrolls indicated that they had some battle success. Their fate was unfortunate.

Team Seven quietly raided the Ame genin for any weapons or medical supplies. Some of Konoha's giant leeches had already made a meal of the foreigners that had carelessly wandered into their territory, and likely would have tried for Team Seven as well if Sasuke hadn't shooed them away with a minor katon jutsu – minor, because he didn't want to give their position away.

Ah, the home-town advantage.

With more than enough scrolls, and with at least one of both types, Team Seven had proceeded to race along the river, still keeping to the shadows and doing their best to avoid being seen, and made their way to the tower in the middle of the training area.

Outside the door Team Seven shared a smirk and threw their spare scrolls back out into the training area as hard and as far as they could. Maybe some other team would be lucky enough to catch one of them, and it would be the scroll they needed, but it was more likely that the scrolls would just be lost in the dense forest.

“If you do not possess Heaven, gain knowledge and be prepared,” Sakura read off the large sign on the wall.

“If you do not possess Earth, run through the fields and gain strength,” Sasuke continued, as he read off the next part.

“If you open both Heaven and Earth scrolls, dangerous paths turn into safe paths,” Naruto took up, and pulled two of their scrolls out of his hip-pouch. “This is the secret of... Uh, dot dot dot?” he asked, and turned to his team-mates in confusion.

They both shrugged.

“Could be anything,” Sakura allowed. “But the final line says 'it shall lead you on your way', so I'm going to suggest that we're supposed to open both scrolls now, and we'll get instructions for whatever comes next.”

“You're the brains of this outfit,” Sasuke said, and tapped Sakura's forehead protector (which was over her forehead) a little teasingly.

“Teme,” Sakura answered with a smirk of her own.

Naruto chuckled. “So, open the scrolls?” he checked.

Sakura and Sasuke both nodded.

Naruto set the two scrolls on the floor, peeled off the labels, and then rolled them open.

“Person? Jin?” Sakura read.

“They're summoning scrolls!” Sasuke realised.

Team Seven hastily backed away, wary just in case whoever was summoned at this point would immediately launch into another test.

The scrolls smoked, and then there was an eruption, and a figure could be seen through the haze as it slowly cleared.

“Yo,” a voice greeted. “Long time, no see.”

“Iruka-sensei?” the three genin yelped in surprise.

“Looks like the three of you went through a lot of trouble,” Iruka noted, taking in how dirty the three genin were.

“Well, we didn't exactly pack soap when we were told where we'd be tested next, Iruka-sensei,” Sakura quipped lightly, an eyebrow arched at the very clean and tidy chuunin. “We were a bit more concerned with things that would help us survive even a straight hike through this forest.”

Iruka laughed. “No, I don't suppose you did. Well, you made it in plenty of time, though you aren't the first to arrive. Some of the genin here broke the old record, with how fast they made it to the tower,” he commented with a smile. “Congratulations on passing the second phase of the Exam.”

Team Seven smiled, and relaxed just a little bit more.

“Arigatou, Iruka-sensei,” Naruto said gratefully.

“Ano, Iruka-sensei?” Sakura asked. “What's the missing part of the writing on the wall?”

Iruka smiled. “Explaining it is another part of what I'm here to do,” he said. “This is the principle that Hokage-sama wrote for every chuunin to keep in mind. The 'Heaven' is the head of a person, the 'Earth' is the body. If you lack Heaven, seek knowledge and be prepared,” Iruka recited. “This means, for example, if Naruto's weak point is his brain,” he said with a teasing smile as he pointed at the blonde, particularly, his head, “then he should study and prepare for his missions.”

Sakura had the grace to hide her giggle behind a raised hand, while Sasuke wrapped an arm around Naruto's shoulders and dug his knuckles into the blonde mop.

“Yeah yeah,” Naruto grumbled. “I was a bad student who sucked at paper tests. Laugh it up.”

Iruka smiled, and turned his attention to the giggling Sakura. “And if you do not possess Earth, run through the fields and seek out strength,” he said. “For example, if Sakura's weakness is taijutsu, she should train more often.”

The two boys grinned over at their female team-mate, who had stopped giggling. Both boys were well aware of how far she had come since they'd been in the Academy, thanks to Strife-sensei, and as she crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her nose in the air, they knew she didn't appreciate the reminder of how she had been.

“And if you have both Heaven and Earth attributes, any dangerous missions will become safer and easier. That is what it means,” Iruka explained.

“And the missing bit?” Naruto asked. “The 'dot dot dot'?”

“That is the space that symbolises the chuunin,” Iruka explained, and picked up one of the summoning scrolls that had brought him there. “The 'human' character that was in here,” he said, indicating the now empty centre of the summoning scroll, “goes in that spot. You have been tested as chuunin, and you have so far passed. Never forget this principle of chuunin, and go on to the next step. This is what I was ordered to tell you,” Iruka said.

“Ha!” Team Seven answered, and gave their old sensei a sharp salute.

“But...” Iruka started, “don't push yourselves too much,” he requested. “I worry about you. Especially you, Naruto.”

“Iruka-sensei,” Naruto interrupted. “We graduated from the Academy, and these,” he said, reaching up to his hitai-ate, “are the proof you gave to all three of us that we're not children any more. You can't change your mind about that _now_. Not when we've been shinobi for this long.”

“Naruto's right, Iruka-sensei,” Sakura agreed. “We're not children any more. Our jounin-sensei trained us all hard since we left your care.”

“None of us are the little gakis we were back then,” Sasuke agreed. “Sensei wouldn't stand for it.”

“... I– I see...” Iruka said hesitantly. “I'm sorry, Team Seven.”

~oOo~

Out of eighteen teams that had entered training area forty-four, only seven remained when the five days were up. A little less than half, just as the proctor, Anko Mitarashi, had promised them. Team Seven noted to themselves that Kabuto's team looked like they had only just stumbled in at the last moment. They also noted that, of all the teams still in it, Kabuto's team was probably the only team that had taken the Chuunin Selection Exam before. They couldn't say for sure about the Sand genin, but the Oto genin had said before the first test that it was their first Exam, and the rest of the genin? They were the Konoha rookies, the ones no one would have bet money on to get even this far, especially against other, more experienced genin.

Team Seven stood between Team Ten and the team that answered to Gai Maito, with Team Eight on the other side of Team Ten on the outer edge, and Kabuto's team on the other side of Gai's team, then the Suna nin, and finally the Oto genin on the other outside edge of their formation in front of the proctors, the Hokage, and their gathered jounin-sensei.

“Oi,” Naruto whispered to Sasuke, who stood behind him. “That jounin-sensei with the Oto headband.”

“It's _him_ ,” Sakura hissed as she followed the gazes of both boys and recognised the eyes that were peering hungrily out from a slightly different face than the last one they'd seen him wear. Literally wear. Seeing skin peeled off enough to reveal another face underneath... Sakura shuddered slightly where she stood.

“I've got a bad feeling,” Sasuke said lowly. “It's good that Sensei is finally here.”

The other two nodded in silent, vehement agreement, and then quietened down when the Hokage stepped up to speak – and illuminate them all to the _other_ purpose of the Chuunin Selection Exam: it was a sort of civilised war between the allied nations. Some of the genin didn't much like hearing that, and some of the genin had clearly not been drilled well enough in the fine art of keeping ones mouth shut and just listening.

For those who really, properly listened to the Hokage as he spoke to the genin before him, they would wonder at the old man's present reputation as a pacifist, or the rumours that he was getting soft in his old age. Team Seven, thanks to the drilling of their sensei, really and properly listened – and they were not only impressed by the old man, they were inspired.

They would not fail their Hokage, and they would not fail their sensei.

“I don't care,” stated the red-head from the Suna team. “Tell us the details of this life-or-death exam.”

The Sandaime made a gesture, and a new shinobi appeared before them, apparently out of nowhere, but he was a shinobi, so that was fairly standard.

“I, Hayate Gekkou, the judge for the third stage, will explain,” he said, introducing himself to them at the same time. “Before the third stage proper can take place, there is something you must do,” he said, and smirked at them all before he started coughing heavily.

“Our judge is going to die before he gets to telling us the rules,” Sasuke commented lowly to his team-mates.

“But he still moved that fast,” Sakura pointed out softly. “That wasn't a shunshin.”

“Mm,” Naruto agreed. “Just speed.”


	7. Chapter 7

“You're going to fight in some preliminary matches to see who gets to advance to the main battle of this, the third stage of the Exam,” Hayate Gekkou informed them.

“Preliminary matches? What do you mean?” Shikamaru demanded, uncharacteristically vehement.

“Why can't we just start the third stage with the remaining examinees?” Ino asked, adding her voice to her team-mate's.

“Because there's too many of you,” Gekkou answered flatly. “I don't know if it's because the first and second stages were too easy, you all just got lucky, or if you're all actually just that good.”

“We're just that good!” Kiba answered firmly, a grin on his face.

Gekkou shook his head. “Whatever the reason, there are still too many of you, so, as per Exam regulations, we've got to cut that number down. As Hokage-sama has already explained, there are a lot of guests coming for the third stage. For this reason, and because we also have a limited amount of time, we cannot have a lot of matches. So, anybody who's not feeling well -” Hayate cut himself off, taken by a coughing fit.

Behind him, Cloud frowned. He hadn't ever worked with Hayate Gekkou before. Hadn't really even met him until earlier that day. At that moment, he couldn't help but wonder if one of his materia might fix up that cough. From the look of the man, Cloud guessed he'd been suffering from that cough for some time, and likely, it was worse than it sounded.

“Excuse me,” Hayate said once his coughing fit subsided. “Anybody who wishes to quit after hearing the explanation, please let me know. Otherwise, the preliminary matches will begin immediately.”

“Immediately?!” Kiba yelled.

“But we just got through the second stage,” Ino whined softly.

“Troublesome,” Shikamaru agreed.

“What? What about my meal?” Chouji asked.

It seemed that all of Team Ten were in agreement: they didn't want to do this right now. None of them actually made a motion to quit though.

“Ah, I almost forgot,” Gekkou said. “You will have one-on-one matches from here on out, so there is no pressure of your team-mate's having to withdraw with you.”

“I'll quit,” called Kabuto from the front of his team line, a smile on his face and a fresh bandage across his nose.

“Let's see,” Hayate said as he turned a page on his clipboard. “You are Konoha's Kabuto Yakushi?” he asked. “You may leave then.”

“Hai,” Kabuto answered. With that, he turned and headed for the door.

The latest proctor gave a single cough when Kabuto left the room, drawing everybody's attention back to him, as some had turned to watch the genin leave.

“May I assume there are no more people who wish to retire?” he asked.

“Gekkou-san?” Sasuke called, and raised his hand. “If we withdraw, can we still stay and support our team-mates?”

“No,” Hayate answered simply. “Sumimasen.”

Sasuke sighed, and lowered his hand. “Then I guess I'm staying,” he said softly.

“Then, let's begin the preliminary matches,” Gekkou declared softly, though his voice carried out over all of them. “As I have already stated, it will be a one-on-one match. As a chuunin, you may be sent on solo missions where you will not have a team to make up your deficiencies, in this way it will be like real combat. Since we now have exactly twenty people, we will have ten matches, and winners will advance to the third stage of the Exam. The rules are few, and simple. You fight until one of you dies, is knocked out, or admits defeat. If you think you're in a bad situation and don't want to die, admit your defeat quickly and loudly,” Gekkou instructed, and then coughed before he continued. “If I judge that the match is over, I may stop you, so as to prevent any unnecessary deaths. For the matches...” he said, and turned slightly.

He made eye-contact with Anko, who lifted a hand to the communication device she was wearing and gave a short, curt order.

A screen was revealed.

“This will decide,” Hayate told them. “This electric bulletin board will randomly display the names of two fighters for each match. Since no one else is quitting, I will now display the names for the first match.”

The genin all watched the screen, each of them wound up tightly in anticipation. Only slightly more relaxed, the jounin watched the screen as well as it flashed yellow for a moment, and then started cycling rapidly through names until it stopped on two.

Yoroi Akadou and Sasuke Uchiha.

“Damn,” Sasuke hissed softly. “So much for Sensei checking me out before my match.”

“Just get it done quickly,” Sakura advised softly.

Naruto nodded silently. “You can do it Sasuke.”

“Those whose names are displayed, step up,” Hayate ordered casually, and coughed once the two were standing before him. “We will now begin the first match. Everybody else, please move up there,” he requested, and gestured to the balcony that, except for the back wall, ran completely around the large room.

“Sensei,” Sasuke called softly as Cloud walked by, headed for the rest of Team Seven. “I need you to check something after my match.”

“Hn,” Cloud agreed, and briefly lay a hand over Sasuke's shoulder. “I know,” he answered softly.

“Also, I'm suspicious of this guy,” Sasuke added.

“Then kill him,” Cloud said easily. “But subtly. This is only the preliminaries, no need to show off here.”

“Hai,” Sasuke agreed.

Cloud nodded and moved on to collect his other two students.

“Sensei,” Sakura and Naruto greeted softly.

“Reports?” he asked.

Sakura handed over one sheet of paper, while Naruto held out two – his own account of Team Seven's time in the forest, and Sasuke's, which the boy had slipped him when his name appeared on the board to fight. They'd all agreed that their sensei would most likely want a report from each of them of their time in the Forest of Death, and they'd had little else to do once they'd reached the tower, so they'd written it all down.

Cloud gave a small smile and nodded approvingly at them as he took the papers and started to read them as he ushered them up the stairs to the balcony.

“Also, Sensei?” Naruto whispered.

“Hm?”

“The Oto jounin is the same creepy teme that gave Sasuke that... whatever it is on his neck,” Naruto said.

“Or else his brother,” Sakura allowed. “They've got the exact same eyes.”

Cloud's gaze sharpened on his students before flicking up to scan the other spectators present until he found who he was looking for.

“Right,” he said lowly, through clenched teeth.

~oOo~

“Begin,” Hayate said.

“Let's go!” Yoroi called out, and formed a seal.

Sasuke silently reached into his weapons pouch and fingered the handle of a kunai there.

One hand glowing with chakra, Yoroi threw three shuriken at Sasuke with the other.

Rather than draw his kunai and deflect the incoming weapons, Sasuke simply ducked the only _one_ of the three that _might_ have hit him – and then Yoroi was there, suddenly before him with his hand glowing blue. Sasuke had no desire to find out what the technique was or what it could do. He slipped down even lower, apparently 'dropped' his kunai, only to catch it in the opening of his sandals around his toes (Sensei had threatened to chop all of their toes _off_ if they couldn't find a way to justify wearing open-toed footwear in their profession. He himself wore steel-toed boots), pointy end out. When he brought his legs up to tackle his opponent in a standard grapple that he'd learned way back in the Academy, and that his opponent fell to as though it was an Academy drill and not a competition to continue in the Exam, the spike he'd armed one of his feet with was driven into the neck of his opponent.

It happened to cut through a very important couple of veins and arteries as it went in.

Hayate blinked in surprise at how quickly the blood spread out from the two genin on the floor, and shuffled up to them to check exactly what was going on. He blinked again to see the tip of a kunai just barely poking out of the front of Yoroi's throat.

“The winner of the first match is Sasuke Uchiha. This means he passes the preliminary round,” he declared. “And can someone get a medic?” he requested, then looked back down. “And a mop?”

“Sorry, Gekkou-san,” Sasuke said as he released the grapple and stood. “I didn't realise until too late that my dropped kunai had gotten caught in my sandal. Do you think he'll make it? I wouldn't want Konoha to lose a loyal and able shinobi because of me.”

Hayate sighed and shrugged vague answer and dismissal of the unnecessary apology, then motioned for Sasuke to just leave the floor.

A good number of the other genin present just stared at Sasuke, their jaws hanging open in shock at what had just happened. Well in truth, it was actually mostly just the genin that Team Seven had graduated with that were staring at him like that, and they quickly snapped their teeth back together when Sasuke silently moved passed them to stand with his team and Sensei.

Cloud lay a hand on Sasuke's shoulder again, apparently offering the boy comfort. Actually, he was getting a better look at the mark that Orochimaru had given to _his_ student.

“After the preliminaries,” he said, “I will give all three of you an introductory lesson in fuinjutsu, and I will deal with this properly.”

“Arigato, Sensei,” Sasuke said, genuinely grateful – both that he would get to watch the rest of the matches, and that something would be done about the mark he'd received.

“Hai, arigato,” Naruto and Sakura echoed softly.

“By the way Sasuke,” Cloud continued, and bent down so that he could speak directly into his student's ear. “You did well. I'm proud of you.”

Sasuke's eyes went wide. It wasn't often that such praise was handed out by Strife-sensei. His praise, when it came, was generally a simple “not bad”, there had been that one “good work” when they had successfully protected the client, Tazuna, on the way to Wave. Occasionally they got a rare, simple “good”, which was always honestly meant and taken as the highest praise by all members of the team.

This was the first time Strife-sensei had told any of them that he was _proud_ of them. It was the first time any of them had been told they “did well”.  
“Arigato, Sensei,” Sasuke said softly, and resolutely didn't reach up to his eyes, which felt itchy and damp. He would _not_ acknowledge any tears, if they were there. He wouldn't. But if they came, he would not be ashamed of them either.

“Now we will begin the next match,” Hayate called once Yoroi had been removed and the blood cleaned up off the floor. Behind him, the next set of names flashed up on the board.

Abumi Zaku versus Shino Aburame.

“Who's the other weakling?” asked one of the Oto genin.

It was impossible to tell with the black glasses the boy was wearing, but those standing near Shino got the distinct impression that he was glaring back at the smug Oto genin. Certainly Kurenai, his jounin-sensei, was glaring at the Oto team's sensei.

~oOo~

“That,” Cloud said when the match was over, “was both an excellent match and a terrible one. Tell me why.”

“It displayed good strategy on the part of both shinobi,” Sasuke said.

“Zaku underestimated Shino, but still kept an ace in the whole, just in case,” Sakura supplied.

“Everybody here now has some idea of how to prepare to fight Shino in the third stage,” Naruto offered. “Since now we all know about his bugs.”

Cloud nodded. “All correct,” he said approvingly. “Go offer congratulations to your year-mate,” he instructed.

“Hai,” they agreed, and left Cloud's side to greet Shino as he rejoined his team.

Because of Shino's glasses, it was impossible to tell, but watching them, Cloud suspected that the boy blinked in surprise behind those little round shields before he accepted their congratulations, which had not been at all expected the way praise from his team-mates might have been.

When the next two names appeared on the board, Misumi Tsurugi versus Kankurou, Cloud whistled a single low note. Team Seven promptly returned to his side to watch the next match.

“Unlike Yoroi, I won't go easy on you just because you're a kid,” Tsurugi said.

“Hn,” Kankurou scoffed, unaffected by the statement of his opponent.

“Let me warn you. Once my move gets a hold of you, it's over,” Tsurugi stated. “I'll finish this quickly.”

“Then,” Kankurou said, and released the burden from his back. “I'll finish this match quickly too.”

“Then, third match, begin,” Hayate bid.

When the match was over, Cloud tensely informed his genin that they _would_ be studying (as much as they were able) the artistry of war-puppets. He didn't bother asking them what was clever and stupid about that match. They would review it later when they started the war-puppetry lessons.

“Scared, Sakura?” Ino asked slyly as she sauntered up to them then. “I can't imagine what could happen to you in these preliminary matches,” she said, pretend concern radiating from her every pore and a falsely sympathetic smile on her face. “You should retire,” she advised with a smirk.

“Scared? Retire?” Sakura repeated. “Are you projecting, Ino-pig?” she asked with insincere curiosity. “I'm looking forward to my turn,” she informed the other girl flatly.

On the floor, Gekkou coughed a couple of times and turned to the board. “Moving on, we'll begin the fourth match.”

“Oh look, Ino-pig,” Sakura commented lightly, “we get to see who's improved the most since the Academy,” she said, and hopped over the rail.

“Eh?” Ino said dumbly for a moment.

Naruto pointed to the board. “You're up,” he informed the other blonde.

Sakura Haruno versus Ino Yamanaka.

It took Ino a moment to process that, but once she did, she quickly moved down to stand opposite Sakura before the proctor.

Their fight was over not long after it began. Ino made the mistake of letting old emotions interfere with the immediate fight. Rather than _hitting_ Sakura when she was close enough and had an opening, she slapped her, and then froze in shock at her own actions. Sakura took advantage and, charging her right arm with chakra while she grabbed Ino's shoulder with her left hand, promptly lowered the boom. A sucker-punch to the stomach was first, and then the one that ended the fight – and would give Ino quite an impressive black eye later.

Something for the girl to scream and lament about when she woke up.

“I guess I'm the one who's improved most since the Academy,” Sakura said plainly as she released her hold on her one-time friend and rival.

The fight was called in her favour.

Sakura sighed, picked Ino up off the floor, and carried her unconscious body back up to the balcony and her team.

“You didn't underestimate your opponent or let your emotions interfere,” Cloud said when Sakura returned to them and the boys had gotten their congratulations out of the way (Sasuke messed up her hair with a noogie, to which Sakura laughed. She'd settled well into being 'one of the boys' in the time she'd been under Cloud's command, and had benefited from it).

“Sensei?” she asked.

Cloud smiled at her. “You really have come a long way Sakura,” he said softly. “I'm proud of you.”

“Ah! Arigato Sensei!” Sakura said with a bright smile, the same elation filling her as had filled Sasuke not long before, when those four words had been whispered into his ear.

~oOo~

“Sensei, do you think I could learn to use a battle fan like that?” Sakura asked.

“If you ever use a battle fan like _that_ , I will not be pleased,” Cloud answered. “I may be willing to teach you how to use tessen properly though. You'll have to work at it of course.”

“Hai! Arigato, Sensei!”

~oOo~

“You'd never know from how lazy he is, but Shikamaru is pretty smart, ne, Sensei?” Naruto said.

Cloud chuckled. “It's genetic,” he said.

“Genetic?” Sasuke asked. “Like a bloodline?”

Cloud chuckled again. “Something like that,” he allowed as he shook his head. “If you ever meet his family, you'll see what I mean.”

~oOo~

“Oh, lucky!” Kiba Inuzuka declared when his name appeared on the board with Naruto's. “We can win against him for sure, Akamaru!”

Almost as one, Team Seven and their sensei turned to look at the loud boy and raised their left eyebrows at him, like they were wondering what he (and his puppy) were barking about. Naruto turned to his team-mates and received a nod from each of them.

He hopped over the rail to the arena floor.

“Seventh match of the preliminaries,” Hayate said. “Between Naruto Uzumaki and Kiba Inuzuka.”

“I'm tired from all that waiting! It's finally my turn to show off my moves!” Kiba declared with a grin when he stood across from Naruto. “Getting you as my opponent means I've already won! Ne, Akamaru?”

The puppy barked loudly what everybody could only guess was an affirmative, and Kiba removed him from the front of his jacket, setting the puppy on the floor beside him.

“Sorry Sempai,” Kurenai said to Cloud. “But Naruto is just no match for Kiba.”

Cloud's second eyebrow joined the first as he looked over at the young woman. “Oh?” he asked. “What do you base that assertion on?”

Kurenai didn't get to answer, as Hayate's cough cut across them before he called the start of the fight.

“Begin.”

Kiba started off with a clan technique, one that had the visible effect of causing his fingernails to grow into claws. The attack he launched showed that the technique also improved his speed. He had a fair bit of momentum behind him when he planted his elbow into Naruto's torso.

“He won't be waking up for a while, Examiner-san,” Kiba said as he straightened, a smirk on his face as he took in the sight of his opponent laid out on the floor, several feet away.

“See?” Kurenai said to Cloud.

He smirked back.

“Eh?” a familiar voice drawled from behind Kiba. “Who won't be waking up for a while?”

“What?!” Kiba exclaimed, and turned sharply.

There was Naruto, standing casually where... where Akamaru had been.

Kiba looked back to where Naruto had fallen, only to see Akamaru lying where the blonde had been, and it looked like _he_ wouldn't be getting up any time soon. Actually, it looked like a couple of his ribs had been cracked by Kiba's attack. “Kawarimi?” the boy asked.

Naruto shrugged silently. The answer was rather obvious, and he didn't really feel any need to reply to that. He smirked and resisted the urge to gloat a little more. After all, he had just tricked the Inuzuka into taking his own partner out of the fight.

“Damn you!” Kiba growled, and charged at Naruto again.

Again, thanks to Naruto's use of the kawarimi, the one he struck was Akamaru instead of his opponent.

“You might want to stop,” Naruto advised, “before Akamaru decides he doesn't like having a partner who hits him all the time. I can't see any of the other Inuzuka dogs taking to you after you get a reputation like that either.”

Kiba grit his teeth, and while he knew Naruto had a point, he wasn't about to say so. “Why should I give up?” he demanded. “You haven't landed a hit on me yet!”

Naruto smirked.

Kiba had been standing between himself and Akamaru, practically standing over his puppy in a protective manner. Naruto used the replacement technique again and was suddenly inside his old classmate's guard – and with his fist rushing at Kiba's face. It connected with his nose, and there was a crunching sound, and Kiba was lifted slightly from the ground by the force of the punch.

“Satisfied?” Naruto asked Kiba when he landed again. “Now imagine if I'd had a kunai in my hand when I did that.”

Kiba cursed through the blood streaming down his chin. “Damn it,” he growled. “I give.”

“Winner, Naruto Uzumaki,” Gekkou declared.

Naruto nodded and walked over to Kiba. “Here,” he said as he held out a hand, a hind of greenly glowing chakra around his fingertips.

Kiba shifted away.

“I'm not great at medical jutsu yet, but I know how to fix a nose,” Naruto stated, what he was offering clear to his classmate. Then he chuckled. “I've had to fix Sasuke's often enough,” he added.

Kiba eyed Naruto suspiciously, but then nodded in acceptance.

Naruto fixed his nose up quickly. “Wouldn't do to be an Inuzuka who couldn't smell,” he said. “I think I'd better leave Akamaru's healing to professionals though. I hope he gets better.”

Kiba nodded, and hurried to collect his partner.

Naruto returned to his team on the balcony.

“I'm proud of you, Naruto,” Cloud said, a soft smile on his face. “You did well without showing off. I think you might have shocked a few of the other people in this room out of their socks as a bonus,” he added.

“Sensei,” Naruto said with a smirk of his own, “most shinobi don't wear socks,” he pointed out, then the smirk slipped away as that same feeling that had already engulfed his team-mates touched him as well. “Ano... Arigato, Sensei,” he said softly.

Cloud nodded.


	8. Chapter 8

“Sensei, I think that Neji should be given to Morino-san,” Sasuke said as he watched the two Hyuuga on the floor below. “If he's so good at analysing body language, and tearing people down, he should do it where it will benefit the village, rather than destroying his comrades.”

Cloud smiled and reached out a gloved hand to rest on the boy's head, mussing his hair. “Where Hyuuga-chan gets placed is not something I have any affect on,” he told his student. “But if you want to make that suggestion to Ibiki-kun, I'm sure he'd think about it,” he offered, and pointed to where Ibiki was standing with the Hokage, Anko, and the other chuunin who had helped proctor the Exam thus far.

Sasuke nodded and went to do just that, even as Hinata collapsed where she stood, having never been touched, and conceded the match rather than fight her older cousin.

“Yuuhi-san,” Cloud called softly as the match was declared. “What have you been doing with your students, that one lacks any confidence in her abilities to such a point?”

Kurenai winced, but had no answer. She cared about Hinata, very much, and wanted to wrap the girl up in cotton wool and keep her safe. Safe from the dangers of shinobi life, and safe from her unkind family. It wasn't really working out, as had just been demonstrated.

“Sensei, could Hinata-chan train with us for a while?” Sakura asked.

“I have no issue with it, but you will have to ask Yuuhi-san,” Cloud answered. “She is Hyuuga-chan's sensei.”

Sakura nodded and stepped up to Kurenai. “Yuuhi-sensei, could Hinata-chan please train with Team Seven for a while?” Sakura asked.

“I could train with Naruto-kun?” a soft, tentative, familiar voice asked hopefully from behind Kurenai before she could answer.

She turned sharply to look at her student. “Hai,” she answered at last. “Sempai, if you have room for one more under your care now and then?” she asked Cloud.

He nodded. “I know where the Hyuuga compound is. I'll collect her from there tomorrow morning for training,” Cloud said and turned his attention back to the floor.

“Sensei,” Naruto said softly.

“Hai?”

“Can I beat up Neji later?”

Cloud chuckled. “Later,” he allowed, and mussed his hair the way he had Sasuke's just a few minutes before. “It won't be easy though, so I'll have to teach you how to do it best.”

“Arigato.”

The next names appeared on the screen then. Lee Rock versus Chouji Akimichi.

The end result wasn't pretty. Lee, for all that he had no desire or intention to _truly_ hurt a fellow Konoha shinobi, turned the gluttonous genin into something resembling a raw hamburger.

And then was the final match. Chouji was lucky he'd only been turned into hamburger. The medics were fairly sure they could get him fighting fit again in a couple of months. The Oto genin, Kinuta Dosu, wouldn't ever be fighting again. He'd been turned into nothing more substantial than a sandy red smear in short order.

Hayate coughed as the remaining mess was, again, mopped up. “That concludes the preliminary matches to the third stage. Could the genin who won their matches please return to the floor,” he called, and coughed again as the winning genin lined up in front of himself, Anko, and Ibiki. The Hokage behind them on the damaged but slightly raised platform, their non-passing team-mates and the jounin-sensei remaining behind on the balconies. “To those who have made it to the main matches of the Chuunin Selection Exam's third stage, congratulations,” Gekkou said.

“I will now begin the explanation of the final matches,” the Hokage said, smiling past his pipe as he looked out at them.

While that was explained to the genin, however, Cloud made his way around the balcony to the man wearing the hitai-ate of Otogakure.

“Konnichiwa, Hebi-gaki,” Cloud greeted quietly as he settled in to lean against the wall beside the other 'jounin-sensei'. “It's been a long time since I saw _you_ last.”

“So that really is you, Sempai?” Orochimaru said softly. “I thought I was looking at your son. Surely you should look as old as Sensei now...”

“Surely I should also have terrible scars all over my body,” Cloud replied, and smoothed one gloved hand over the bare skin of his other arm. His smooth, unblemished, bare skin. As smooth, tight, and perfect as that of a child who has never even scraped his elbow.

“Genjutsu?” Orochimaru asked. “I had never thought you vain that way, Sempai.”

Cloud shrugged. “Looking young and unblemished is a good way to get people to underestimate me,” he said, omitting the whole truth of the matter. But he was a shinobi now, lies and dissembling information were as much a part of his trade now as they had once been for the Department of Administrative Research.

“What brings you here, Sempai?” Orochimaru asked. “I had really expected a chance to talk with Kakashi-kun.”

“Your spy is misinformed,” Cloud answered.

“Oh?”

“Kakashi Hatake was passed over for the position of jounin-sensei this year. The genin you marked is _my_ student,” Cloud said.

Orochimaru froze for a moment as he absorbed that information.

“Did I ever tell you the end of that story?” Cloud asked speculatively, ostensibly changing the topic of conversation. “The one I told you and your two gaki team-mates about why it was important for you all to learn medical jutsu?”

“The scientist killed the priestess for interfering in his affairs,” Orochimaru recalled after a moment.

“That wasn't the end of the story,” Cloud said.

“It was the last you told any of us,” Orochimaru countered.

“Hm, then I was remiss,” Cloud mused. “The story _ended_ much later. Professor Hojo had tried to take over the body of another, to become immortal.”

Orochimaru smiled.

“Shortly after this attempt, he was killed,” Cloud said.

“By who?” Orochimaru asked softly.

“A good friend of mine who had more reason to kill Hojo than I did,” Cloud said. “I stepped aside and let him have the kill. But make no mistake, Hebi-gaki, I would have no difficulty killing you myself. Fortunately for you, I kill on order from Hokage-sama now, rather than to avenge the wrongs committed against those I care about.”

That said, Cloud pushed himself off the wall and went down to collect Team Seven. It was time to deal with that mark.

~oOo~

“As soon as he saw he was fighting his team-mate, he forfeited?” Cloud asked, surprised, as they walked along the river in training ground forty-four, just leisurely making their way back to the fence. “That's what I get for threatening Orochimaru instead of paying attention.”

Naruto nodded. “And then, when the new set-up pitted Gaara against the kunnoichi on his team, she forfeited too,” he explained.

“So now, _I_ am fighting Gaara,” Sasuke said.

“But with the two Suna genin dropping out, it means there are eight genin to compete in the final stage, which is a much better number for the tournament lay-out than ten,” Sakura added. “I'm fighting Rock-san,” she added, and giggled a little. “He looked ready to cry when he found out.”

“He developed a fast and passionate crush on you while you were fighting Yamanaka-chan,” Cloud explained. “The conflict between doing his best and hurting the girl he's just fallen in love with is probably tearing him to pieces right now.”

“Oh,” Sakura said softly, and side-stepped a giant leech that dropped from the tree above, clearly aiming for her. “Ano, Sensei... how are you going to train all three of us for the final matches in a month?” she asked as she – and her team-mates – continued to dance around the many falling leeches as they kept on their way.

“The same way as before,” Cloud said plainly. “As far as I'm concerned, none of you have to prepare to face each other, and I will train you with the mind-set that each of you will be the only member of Team Seven to advance.”  
“Eh?” Sakura asked, confused.

“What I mean is this, all three of you will prepare to fight Rock-chan, Aburame-chan, Nara-chan, Hyuuga-chan and Suna-chibi,” Cloud told them. “It will be difficult to get that much training done in a month, but you have proven your ability to surpass the expectations of others before, so I expect that you will again,” he explained.

“Hai, Sensei!” Team Seven cheered.

~oOo~

Cloud brought Team Seven back to his house once they left the training ground behind. It was a place that none of them had ever been to before. Always in the past he either collected them from their houses, or told them where they were to meet.

“Sugoi,” the three genin breathed in awe as they looked up at the house.

“Okaeri nasai,” Haku greeted with a smile.

“Tadaima,” Cloud answered. “Team Seven,” he called over his shoulder. “Come!”

“Hai, Sensei!” they answered quickly, forced out of their awe to hurry after their sensei and into his house.

“Sensei, ano... you have a big house,” Sakura said softly as they followed him down a hallway.

“Yeah,” Cloud agreed with a shrug. “It's mostly empty space though. Rooms for me to practice in,” he explained, and reached for a door handle. “Like this one,” he said, and opened the door to reveal a room that was easily to the same scale as the room they'd just had their preliminary matches in. “Sasuke, front and centre, and remove your shirt please,” he instructed. “Haku, please bring five blank scrolls, ink, and five fine calligraphy brushes.”

“Hai,” Haku answered, and vanished away to fetch the requested materials.

While the boy did that, Cloud removed his gloves. His black leather gloves that covered most of his forearms. His gloves that his genin had never seen him without. His gloves that hid his matera bracers. Oh sure he kept a few materia equipped in his sword, but not nearly all of them, and certainly not the materia that were meant for casting healing spells. Most of his materia was kept in a cupboard these days. It wasn't like he could use Chocobo Lure here, and he'd long since gained enough real skills that he didn't need his command materia any more.

“Here, Master,” Haku said, returning with the requested items.

“Arigato, Haku. I want you to stay for this lesson,” Cloud said as he took one of the scrolls and brushes for himself and gestured for Haku to share the others among his students. “I believe every shinobi should know something of seals,” he began, and started to copy the seal that was clearly visible on Sasuke's shoulder. “After all, something as simple as _this_ can have very serious ramifications,” he said, and set the copy of the seal on the floor.

“It looks like the Sharingan...” Sasuke said softly.

Cloud nodded. “The Sharingan is also known as _Tengan_ , Heaven's Eye. This is a Seal of Heaven, often referred to as the _Cursed_ Seal of Heaven.”

“Ne, Sensei, why is it called 'cursed'?” Sakura asked curiously.

“In part, because of the low survival rate of those it has been applied to. In part, because of what Orochimaru designed it to do,” Cloud answered, and lay his hand on Sasuke's shoulder over the mark. “Now, this might hurt,” he warned. “I mean, it shouldn't, but it might.”

Sasuke nodded in understanding, and braced himself.

“ _Esuna_ ,” Cloud whispered, and small glowing balls of purple light shot out from Sasuke, dissipating into nothingness barely two seconds later. Cloud removed his hand from Sasuke's shoulder. The seal was still there.

“Wow,” Sasuke breathed. “That felt... amazing.”

“Ne, Strife-sensei, why is the seal still there?” Naruto asked curiously.

“Because what I did was remove the poisons from Sasuke's body,” Cloud answered, and gestured for all of them to sit down, while he did the same. “The seal, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. The bad came from the other things that Orochimaru sealed into Sasuke with it.”

“Like what?” Sasuke asked. “What did that guy put into me?”

“There was a toxin, so all that moving about you did really wasn't good for you Sasuke-chan,” Cloud stated.

Sasuke winced, as did Naruto and Sakura.

“Orochimaru also used the seal to plant some of his chakra in you,” Cloud continued, and smiled slightly in amusement as Sasuke shuddered. Clearly the idea of anything of Orochimaru's being _in him_ wasn't pleasant. “The worst part of the seal though... if you don't resist it, then it corrodes your mind. This seal could have made you very strong while also setting you back to how you were when you left the Academy.”

“An emo little turd with a superiority complex,” Sasuke said with a wince.

“You admitted it!” Naruto said brightly, and grabbed Sasuke in a friendly choke-hold. “You finally admitted it!”

Sakura laughed at the antics of her team-mates as Sasuke wrestled Naruto off him. “So what happens with the seal now, Strife-sensei?” Sakura asked.

“It's a specific type of storage and conversion seal,” Cloud explained. “If, for example, Sasuke planned to do something stupidly chakra-intensive that could knock him out, then someone else would be able to shove some of their chakra into that seal, and Sasuke would be able to use _that_ chakra, as well as his own, and lower the risk of being knocked out by the stupid technique he shouldn't have been trying to do in the first place.”

“There's gotta be a drawback,” Naruto said. “Otherwise everybody would be wearing them and storing extra chakra for just in case.”

Cloud nodded. “Apart from the fact that only Orochimaru has been handing out these party-favours -” Team Seven shuddered at the reminder. “- the more you draw on the seal, the less you bother with maintaining your _own_ strength. It's a crutch. There's also the issue of disfigurement if it is used intensely.”

“How disfigured?” Sasuke asked with a wince.

Cloud shrugged. “Don't really know,” he admitted. “I'm telling you what I'm getting from the seal itself. I haven't ever seen it in action. I do know that it depends a good deal on the person carrying the seal, as to how the disfigurement manifests.”

“Can I get it removed completely?” Sasuke requested.

“Hai,” Cloud agreed. “But that _will_ be painful,” he warned. “Not as painful as if it would be if I hadn't already used that technique, but still painful.”

Sasuke nodded in acceptance, and then screamed as Cloud purged his body of the Seal of Heaven.

“Alright,” Cloud said once Sasuke had stopped screaming and regained his breath. “Now, time for lessons on fuinjutsu.”

“Hai, Strife-sensei,” Team Seven answered, and Haku nodded with silent solemnity.

The lesson began.

~oOo~

“Jounin-san,” the guards at the gate of the Hyuuga compound greeted neutrally.

“I'm here to collect Hinata-sama for extra training, with the blessing of her jounin-sensei,” Cloud informed them.

One of the two guards ducked inside to convey this message to the people who needed to know – the elders of the clan, the clan head, and the girl in question. In that order. This meant that a bunch of grumbling old men who didn't like being woken at dawn appeared at the gate to berate Cloud for having anything to do with the Hyuuga at such a wretched hour, and particularly for giving a damn about their clan head's worthless first-born.

Cloud scowled at them, raised one hand, and called upon one of the materia stocked in his bracer, hidden by his glove (he'd only removed the gloves the previous day so that his students could see what he was doing, and because he hadn't want to get ink from the fuinjutsu lesson on the leather). “ _Silence_!” he commanded them, and nodded in satisfaction as the elders found themselves flapping their jaws uselessly, not a single syllable leaving their mouths.

Then Hiashi arrived.

“What is going on here?” he demanded.

“Your 'revered elders' were being stupid old men,” Cloud answered. “It has been a long time, Hyuuga-san.”

“Sempai?” Hiashi nearly yelped, which quite shocked the elders and the guards at the gate. A Hyuuga did not _yelp_ , after all. He coughed and asked, more calmly, “What brings you here?”

“I'm here for your eldest daughter,” Cloud answered. “She will be joining my team in training for the rest of the month.”

“Hmph,” Hiashi sniffed, his composure firmly back in place at the mention of his eldest child. “She will be home by -”

“The end of the month,” Cloud interrupted firmly. “And not a moment sooner. Do not fight me on this Hyuuga-san, you will lose.”

The elders, silenced by Cloud's spell, all attempted to make their displeasure clear despite their inability to speak it.

Hiashi nodded slowly in grudging acceptance. “Very well,” he allowed.

Finally, Hinata arrived.

“Come along Hyuuga-chan,” Cloud bid, giving the girl a smile before he turned and started walking away. “We have a lot to do.”

“H-hai,” Hinata answered, and hurried to follow the jounin away from her home.

“Hyuuga-chan, there is an important question I need to ask you before I can start your training,” Cloud said as they walked.

“H-hai,” Hinata answered softly as she followed.

“It is this: do you want to be a Hyuuga in line with every other Hyuuga that has come before you, or do you want to be different?” Cloud asked.

“I-” Hinata started, and her pale eyes went wide as she thought about that. About what either answer would mean for her. She thought about what she knew of her clan, and what she knew of herself, and after five minutes of silently following the jounin who was taking over her training, however temporarily, she finally had an answer. “I want to be different, Sensei,” she said. Her words were soft, but they were clear and she said them without stuttering.

Cloud nodded in acceptance of this. “Then you will have to work hard,” he said. “Change is rarely easy after all. But you have taken the first step,” he assured her.

~oOo~

For the following month, Team Seven were not seen by anybody in the village of Konoha. Hinata Hyuuga was also absent from view, and Haku was only not missed because no one was used to seeing him yet. Cloud had them all confined to _his_ house, doing intensive training in a place where no one would be able to spy on them or interfere with them in any way prior to the third stage fights. He sometimes went out though. Generally only to buy fresh groceries, though he also left late one evening when the Hokage sent an him an urgent summons to his office.

Somehow, the proctor for the third stage of the exam had been found on the precipice of death, and because Cloud had the edge over even the best medics at the hospital due to the materia he carried which healed instantly and without cost to the patient's chakra, he had understandably been sent for.

They needed to know who would attack a Konoha shinobi within Konoha, and they needed to know why.

As well as that, Hayate Gekkou had a fiance who would _not_ have taken his death at _all_ well.

Due to the circumstances of his near-death, however, Gekkou would not be proctoring the final stage of the Chuunin Selection Exam. It would be a dead giveaway to the people who'd tried to kill him that their little plot had been made known to the Hokage. Cloud also fixed up the young man's cough before he returned to his home and his students.

Students who were now ready to face the village, and for Team Seven, their opponents in the third stage of the Exams.

“Naruto,” Hinata called before they parted ways – Team Seven to go down to the arena, her to take a seat in the stands. “Please don't be too hard on Neji,” she requested.

“Eh? Why shouldn't I Hinata?” he asked curiously. “He's a bastard who needs to be taught a lesson.”

Hinata smiled. “I need him to still be alive so that I can prove to him myself that everything he said a month ago is wrong,” she answered. “He'll get his lesson.”

“Ha!” Naruto laughed approvingly. “You got a deal Hinata,” he agreed. “I was planning on a quick humiliation anyway.”

Hinata nodded in understanding. “Can't give away all your secrets, even if you have to show off for the clients,” she agreed.

“Oi! Hinata!” another voice called.

Naruto gave her a wave, which Hinata returned, and headed in on his own.

“Kiba-kun!” Hinata greeted happily as she turned to her approaching team-mate. “I've missed you,” she admitted.

“I've missed you too,” the young Inuzuka answered her as he wrapped her up in a hug. “Where have you been this last month eh?”

Hinata giggled. “Getting over my crush, and training,” she answered. “Let's go get some good seats, ne?”

“Ha-hai,” Kiba agreed. “You... you got over your crush on Naruto?”

“Hai,” Hinata answered. “Well, I confessed to him first, and he thanked me for the sentiment, then he apologised for not being able to return it.”

“Is that baka still trying to get Haruno to date him?” Kiba asked.

Hinata shook her head. “Iie,” she answered. “Naruto just doesn't have time for romantic relationships right now, because he's too busy training. Sakura-chan explained to me that all of Team Seven had agreed to put aside romance until they were a few years older and more settled in their ninja careers.”

“Oh.”


	9. Chapter 9

The head-hunter technique was one that had decimated Konoha forces during the last war, until one lucky shinobi had gotten away and been able to report back to the Hokage exactly how Iwa had been killing so many of their number. After that, orders had been to keep to the trees and avoid being on the ground where it was possible, and the Iwa shinobi had been forced to start fighting them from at least ground-level, since they could no longer catch their prey unawares.

But that was the last war, and that had been before any of the genin down in the arena had been born. None of them had ever seen a friend and comrade fall victim to one of the ultimate capture techniques.

Once you'd been dragged down into the dirt up to your chin, you couldn't move to form handseals, and most shinobi never learned how to perform their ninjutsu without them. Taijutsu was useless when so bound, and once you've been caught there really isn't any hope of being able to pull off a genjutsu.

Cloud wasn't really big on teaching big, flashy techniques to his students, but the head-hunter technique wasn't flashy, and it _was_ a valuable asset to any shinobi's arsenal once it had been mastered. As proven by the damage this one technique had caused to Konoha during the last war, even shinobi forgot to look _down_ for incoming attacks, just as they frequently forgot to look up without cause.

It was a human failing. Since the ability to move above or below the 'normal' level wasn't natural, the human brain wasn't wired to check those options when searching for the enemy unless the enemy gave themselves away – or they were specifically trained.

Naruto began his match against Neji – the first match of the tournament-styled third test of the Exam – by creating a cover of shadow clones as soon as the older boy had finished talking at him, trying to mentally tear him down. While Neji was busy taking them out with his juuken strikes, Naruto disappeared below ground and waited until a dispersing clone told him that his opponent was in the right place.

Then he pulled Neji down into the earth while he erupted from it.

“Baka no Neji,” Naruto said as he planted his foot on the older boy's forehead and forced his head back. “Don't call me a drop-out ever again,” he informed the boy lowly. “I was never a drop-out. A drop-out is someone who gives up. I may have been placed low in my class ranking, but I never quit. Not even when the teachers were sabotaging my education and trying to _make_ me quit.”

When Neji opened his mouth to retort, Naruto shoved an exploding tag in past his teeth and then slapped some tape over his mouth so he couldn't spit it out.

“That one has to be lit manually,” Naruto said, and held up a thread that was connected to the tag in Neji's mouth. He then pulled out a simple lighter. “A way to kill you that doesn't require chakra at all.”

Neji's eyes widened. “I give!” he yelled as best he could around the tape. “Don't light it!”

“Winner, Naruto Uzumaki,” Genma Shiranui, Hayate's replacement, announced.

Naruto bowed to the stunned crowd (though Haku, Hinata, and the other rookies who hadn't made it this far were all cheering from their seats) and left the arena. He also left his opponent still up to his neck in dirt.

Genma had to get him out before the next pair of genin could be called down.

It was Sasuke's turn to fight. Against Gaara.

While he was aware that the same tactic used twice in rapid succession would be repetitive, Sasuke decided against using the head-hunter technique for a different reason. He was fairly sure that it wouldn't work on Gaara the way it had on Neji, owing to the Suna genin's control over sand. As an aside, he had no desire to make his death come faster by burying himself on purpose and then Gaara crushing him to death while he was waiting to strike. It would be the height of stupidity.

So, coming up from below was out as an option. Which left attacking from above for directions that got checked 'last'.

Gaara's defences quickly put a halt to that avenue of attack though.

“Hn,” Sasuke noted as he strategically backed off. “Plan 'C' then,” he muttered. Plan 'A' being to drag Gaara down into the arena until he was up to his neck (immediately discarded for the reasons already stated), and Plan 'B' being the aerial attack that had just proven futile.

“Plan 'C'?” Gaara and the examiner both asked. Gaara asked flatly, Genma was more curious.

“'C' for crispy,” Sasuke answered, and formed a few seals before he took a deep breath. His exhale was controlled, as were the intense flames that flowed out with his breath and rushed straight at Gaara.

When Sasuke ran out of breath and the after-images of flames burned into the retinas of all onlookers finally cleared, they were able to see that where Gaara had stood before was now a blackened dome of something.

Cautiously, Sasuke approached the dome and tapped it lightly.

“It's glass,” he stated, a little surprised before he remembered just what glass was made of: sand. It looked like he might have over-cooked the sand a little bit though.

White feathers started floating down into the arena then.

~oOo~

Each of the Konoha genin up for promotion were collected by a different jounin, none of whom were their sensei, and given orders to follow – and fight. Because of the information Hayate had been able to provide, Konoha had a slight contingency plan for evaluating the genin for promotion _while simultaneously_ dealing with a violent invasion. The jounin who had been assigned genin teams, who had genin still in this stage of the exam, had other posts. Gai and his tortoise summons had moved out quickly and were working with a host of other shinobi to keep the streets clear and safe for the civilians who were running for their lives as the invading forces attacked. Asuma defended the rich (but unconscious) guests while Kurenai was systematically breaking the people who were slumped in their seats out of the genjutsu before urging them to go down to the bunker beneath the stadium.

Every building in Konoha had a bunker underneath it. Just because they lived in a time of peace _now_ didn't mean that they hadn't prepared for the worst. After the Kyuubi and needing to rebuild... well, it wasn't such a bid deal to add in extra safe houses at that time. Those who were capable of breaking the genjutsu on their own were already fighting. Those who could fight but couldn't break a genjutsu quickly joined in once Kurenai woke them.

Cloud had unsealed the Fusion Sword and moved as fast as he could (which was pretty damn fast these days with the combination of SOLDIER enhancements and pumping chakra to his legs to give him yet another boost) to where the village walls were being attacked by a summons. A smile lit his face without his permission. His enemy was no Midgar Zolom (that beast had been capable of inflicting some _very_ nasty burns with its Beta attack) but the fact that this giant snake had three heads at one end and three tails at the other was certainly impressive.

However, it was just a summons, however large it was, and like any summons, it flashed out of existence as soon as it got hurt drastically in a manner that it didn't like. In this case, Cloud used one of his limit-breaks to cleanly slice off the left-most head. With the snake out of the way, Cloud backed off. Gai and his lot would deal with enemy shinobi in the streets. Cloud had another station that he had to hurry to. The appearance of the giant snake had forced him to draw away from his original posting, but it really was just something he could do faster than others, and speed meant minimal damage.

Cloud hurried to return to his post by the Sandaime, sending out clones as he passed strategic points or saw a fellow Konoha nin struggling.

“It's impenetrable, Taicho,” one of the AnBu reported to Cloud when he re-joined them. “And Hokage-sama is trapped inside.”

“There is no such thing as a wall that can't be broken,” Cloud answered them, his voice low and flat. “Check from inside the building,” he ordered. “Barriers often forget to protect against assault from below.”

“Ha!” the team of four AnBu answered, and disappeared.

Cloud gave his massive Fusion Sword a quick twirl as he himself ran around to the other side of the roof, charging up one of the materia equipped in the blade as he did. After a series of accidents when he first came to this world, Cloud had been forced to sit down and clinically experiment with the ways the magic of materia and various chakra techniques reacted to each other. Sometimes the two played nicely, and sometimes they really, _really_ didn't. Presently, Cloud was planning on a very exact reaction.

When the DeBarrier left his sword, Cloud smirked to see that the nearest wall of the barrier technique had developed a conveniently human-sized hole. Cloud didn't waste a second before taking advantage of it. Just as well, since it closed up right behind him.

Slowly, cautiously, silently, Cloud climbed up the side of the roof. He didn't have to worry about the brats standing in the corners who were maintaining the barrier, constantly feeding their chakra into it – the reason the hole he'd created closed up behind him, where if it had been a normal barrier the whole thing would have crumbled from his spell. They were all too busy with their task to bother him. Foolish little gakis hadn't even noticed the hole he'd made.

“Perhaps we should stop fooling around,” Cloud heard Orochimaru say from beyond the ridge of the roof. “This isn't an Academy class.”

“Hn, you're right,” Hiruzen agreed, and Cloud saw the large red hat of the Kazekage's office fly up into the air, the over-robe following behind, though not as high in its arc.

Cloud absently caught the hat as it came down, and smirked to himself as he settled it on his own head and continued to listen to them talking back and forth. When he heard the technique Orochimaru used, however, the smirk became an abrupt frown and he whipped out a blank scroll he always kept on his person, just in case. He didn't have any ink with him though, and certainly not a brush, so his blood would just have to do.

“It's been a long time, Saru,” said a voice that Cloud hadn't heard for a long, long time.

“Oh? It's you? You've aged, Sarutobi,” said another voice, one that Cloud hadn't heard for almost as long as the first.

He jumped over the ridge of the roof then, his two make-shift tags ready. He halted his momentum by driving the Fusion Sword into the roof, and was quick to plant the two tags in the heads of the two bodies that had been resurrected by Orochimaru's technique, before Orochimaru could do so himself and bind them to _his_ will with his own tags.

“Oh? Sempai?” Hashirama greeted as he dirt-like face became healthily-glowing flesh. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

“What's a surprise is that he used that loophole in my technique Mito enjoyed exploiting so often. I didn't think Sempai had ever learned it,” Tobirama corrected his bother with a smile as his own body came properly to life.

“Sempai?” Sarutobi also exclaimed in surprise.

Cloud shook his head. “Now is not the time to catch up,” he said, and turned to Orochimaru, his eyes glowing fiercely as he narrowed them at the enemy. “Orders, Hokage-sama?” he asked.

“Orochimaru is not to leave Konoha alive,” Sarutobi answered.

Cloud nodded shortly, and pulled his sword from the tiles where he's planted it.

“Even the Shodai Hokage calls you 'Sempai'?” Orochimaru asked, surprised. “Just how old _are_ you?” he asked Cloud.

“I was old when you were born, Hebi-gaki,” Cloud answered. “Now, are you afraid to take on an old man?” he taunted.

“You must be a hundred years old, Sempai,” Orochimaru said with a scowl. “Likely using a great deal of your chakra just to lift that large sword of yours. You aren't my concern, Sempai. Rather, that you have managed to steal my intended puppets from me is a concern.”

“Shall I let them out of the barrier then, Hebi-gaki, and they can defend the village they built?” Cloud offered, and charged the mastered Destruct materia in his sword again, ready to cast another DeBarrier.

“You can handle him, Sempai?” Hashirama asked.

Cloud nodded silently.

“We'll defend our village then,” Tobirama said, “and leave him to you and Sarutobi.”

“I don't need the handicap,” Cloud informed them with a scowl.

“And if I'm safe, then the AnBu will be more proactive in defending the village, rather than trying to rescue me,” Sarutobi added, and turned to Orochimaru. “Well, my student, will you take your schooling from Sempai, rather than me?”

“Hai,” Orochimaru hissed, and massaged his stomach a moment before tilting his head back. A snake rose out of his opened mouth, and then it also opened its mouth. A sword was released from the snake's throat. “You told me once you could kill me, Sempai. You will find that is not so easy a thing to do.”

Cloud cast the charged spell at the barrier, and the three Hokages ran out of the hole created, out to protect their village. Cloud swung his sword around quickly to block a strike from Orochimaru.

“Kai!” Orochimaru called out, determined to break the genjutsu he believed Cloud was wearing.

There was no change in his opponent's appearance though. Not even one scar appeared.

Orochimaru's eyes widened. “You have the secret to eternal life and youth, Sempai?” he asked, and then grinned. “That is even better than claiming the body of an Uchiha! I will have _your_ body for my own, and never have to take a new one again!”

Cloud released one hand from the handle of his sword and grabbed Orochimaru's face. It peeled off without any trouble, and Cloud frowned at the child's face that appeared from beneath – the eyes still exactly the same.

“Yes, Sempai,” Orochimaru gloated even as he kept their blades locked together and invaded Cloud's personal space. “I completed that forbidden technique.”

Cloud released one of the blades from the Fusion sword and stuck it into Orochimaru's gut, twisting it sharply when he was sure it had gone through the spine. “ _Death_ ,” he incanted, calling upon the highest level spell of his mastered Destruct materia.

Orochimaru didn't even realise the need to perform an escape jutsu, Cloud had been too fast. He was used to people with chakra-enhanced speed or fast-moving kunai and shuriken. He wasn't used to SOLDIER speeds that were even _further_ enhanced by chakra, and he had no counter for a spell that killed instantly. He had no counters for any spells at all.

Cloud kept his materia for emergencies only, sticking to the methods of the shinobi he was among unless there was a need for something more drastic.

As Orochimaru fell limp in death, Cloud made sure he wouldn't get up again by cutting off his head and incinerating him with a katon jutsu. Then the four chilren who had been holding the barrier left their posts and charged him, and Cloud had a new battle to fight.

~oOo~

He had dispatched a three-headed summon snake, sent clones out to help other shinobi as he saw they needed help, assisted in the restoration of the Shodai and Nidaime to Konoha, executed Orochimaru, and killed the four children who carried his mark. His students had each gone with other jounin during the invasion, and he was tired – mentally, not physically. With the First Tsurugi over his shoulder, Cloud hopped down from the roof where his battles had taken place, sliced through the neck of the Ichibi that was in the middle of the stadium (a good portion of the Aburame clan was taking care of it, but helping out a little was always welcome when it came to the tailed beasts. Cloud made a mental note to treat the Aburame's to a round of whatever later) and started to walk home.

Yes, the invasion continued around him, and yes, Cloud cut down any shinobi wearing a hitai-ate that was not branded with Konoha's 'leaf' symbol that got in his way, he even cast Cure and Haste spells on his allies as he passed them. They were both the lowest-ranked spells on their respective materia, but it wasn't like anybody needed any more help than that, that he could see anyway.

Cloud passed Hiashi as he wiped out a couple of squads and gave the man a nod of respect, and chuckled to himself as he saw Chouza grow to be taller than some of the buildings. If he was about, then Inoichi and Shikaku probably weren't far behind, and they were probably gabbing lazily about it bringing back memories of their own genin days when they'd actually gone out to fight, rather than when they were so busy with their current positions in the village.

Cloud decided, as he passed them, was going to have a long drink with Shikaku Nara when this was all over, and complain to him about how all this war nonsense was too troublesome. Especially when he didn't have anybody to go home to after it was done. Nara might claim his wife was a troublesome nag, but at least it she was still someone for the man to go home to. Cloud didn't have that. Well, there was Haku, but he didn't count. He'd kind of had that with Tifa, but for all that she was a great woman and one of his best friends, the busty brunet just wasn't his type. Just like the lovely Tsume and Hana Inuzuka, who had just crossed the street at rooftop-level that he was walking along at ground level weren't his type.

Cloud sighed in frustration as a buxom, naked young woman ran past him, her long blonde hair in pigtails streaming behind her as she launched herself into a kick that was so distracting to the people she was attacking that they didn't even move to avoid it.

“Naruto, I don't care how effective it is for distracting the enemy, if a kunnoichi catches you, you're going to be in for a whole new world of hurt,” Cloud informed his student frankly.

“Eh? Oh, Sensei! Ara, you're not... affected?” the henge'd boy asked. “Or are you like that closet pervert who only succumbed when I used my Harem no Jutsu?”

Cloud shook his head. “You could mob me with a thousand of these,” he said with a gesture to the henge, “and I would be as completely disaffected as I am right now. Still, drop it before you get your head beaten in by an ally. Where's your supervising jounin?”

“Ehe,” Naruto answered sheepishly and dropped the transformation as instructed. “I'm a clone that got separated from the group,” he admitted. “But I figured I'd keep fighting as long as I lasted.”

Cloud sighed. “What have I told you about the memories of kage bunshin?” he asked as he absently killed another enemy that had tried to catch him from behind.

Naruto stared at the kill for a moment in shock before he answered. “That they go back to the original when we disperse,” he said.

“And what do you think would happen to the original if he suddenly got a bunch of strange memories of charging around Konoha, naked and female, when he's supposed to be focused on fighting?” Cloud asked pointedly.

Naruto chuckled weakly. “Ehe, whoops?” he suggested.

Cloud rolled his eyes and kept walking.

“Ne, Sensei? Why aren't you affected by my Sexy no Jutsu?” Naruto asked, hurrying to keep up. If he stuck with Sensei, then it was less likely he'd be dispersed during the battle, thereby preventing his creator from getting a pile of memories at an inconvenient time.

Cloud shook his head. “That is none of your business Naruto,” he answered frankly. “Nor is it pertinent to the situation at hand,” he added pointedly as he separated the head of an Oto nin from his shoulders.

“Oh, sorry Sensei.”

“Conversely,” Cloud said after they'd gone several streets together in silence, “if you should ever decide that you're in love with a man, but still want to be a parent, it might be an idea to see if you can fall pregnant under that transformation.”

“Gurk!?”


	10. Chapter 10

The battle was won, the invasion rebuffed, and Cloud sat on his front step and thought about the past few months as he performed a little weapon's maintenance. The genin he had been given had all proven themselves to the jounin they had been with during the battle, and had been promoted to chuunin by the Shodai after the funeral for those shinobi that had fallen in battle. The Sandaime among them. There was no rush to try and find a Godaime though, not with the Shodai and the Nidaime recently resurrected. The pair were willing to once more take an active part in the governance of the village they had created, though they also both wanted to get the village stable again fairly quickly so that they would feel no guilt over returning to the Pure World where just about all of their loved ones were.

Two hot-headed boys has become calm, driven shinobi. A weak little girl had become a strong, passionate kunnoichi, while another shy girl had become confident, and was had the skills to back up that confidence. A tool had been captured and slowly was turning into a person under his guidance. He'd drunk Shikaku Nara under the table after killing an S-ranked missing nin.

Not bad for a few month's worth of activity.

“Ohayo,” Cloud greeted, and swung the Kubikirihoncho around in front of the two people who had been about to pass him, stopping them. He had lived in Konoha for a long time, and he knew the chakra signatures of every local ninja. “It's been a long time, Itachi-chan. Who is your friend?” he asked, not looking up as he set aside the whetstone, though the sword remained perfectly still and level, two feet off the ground and held there by only one hand.

“Oh?” one of the two stopped people asked. “So someone took Zabuza-chan's sword from him? That's a bit of a surprise.”

“It has been a long time, Sempai,” Itachi agreed. “You didn't use a sword at all, the last I knew.”

“I hardly let everybody know everything about me, Itachi-chan,” Cloud answered simply. “Where are your manners? I asked you who your friend was.”

“It's manners to introduce yourself first,” the stranger pointed out.

“I am Sempai,” Cloud answered, finally looking up. “Sometimes Taicho. Very few people know my name and I prefer to keep it that way.”

“You'll never become famous that way,” the stranger scoffed. He had blue skin, and marks like gills around his eyes, and a sword as large as the Kubikirihoncho at his back.  
“Ah, but if everybody knows who you are, then you're not really a shinobi,” Cloud countered with a wry smile. “Kisame Hoshigaki,” he finished, not needing the introduction once he's actually taken in the appearance of the stranger. “Would you care to know how I killed Momochi-san?” he asked lightly.

Kisame smirked. “I will admit to curiosity,” he allowed. “Zabuza-kun wasn't exactly a pushover.”

The hand not holding the large sword flashed, quickly picking up the small razor that had been folded and resting by his leg, waiting its turn to be sharpened, and flicked it open. Then the little blade was tearing through Kisame's neck, just as it had torn through Zabuza's. SOLDIER speed enhanced with chakra and quickly defeating one who expected more banter rather than an attack from someone who was sitting down.

“That is how I killed Zabuza,” Cloud said to the corpse as it bled out on the street in front of his house. Then he turned to Itachi. “What brings you home?” he asked. “Did you come to congratulate your little brother on his recent promotion to chuunin?”

“Iie,” Itachi answered, apparently unperturbed by the death of his travelling companion. “Though that news does please me. Kisame and I came for the kyuubi jinchuriki, Uzumaki Naruto.”

“Ah,” Cloud said. “To congratulate him on _his_ promotion to chuunin?” he suggested with a wry smirk, well aware that the scenario he'd just proposed was as likely as Orochimaru returning to life and apologising for the mess he'd caused with his attempted invasion.

“Iie,” Itachi answered. “Akatsuki intends to create a new world with the power of the biiju. Of course, this requires that we _have_ the biiju.”  
“Hn,” Cloud grunted as he bent to examine the body of the man he'd just killed, still keeping the Kubikirihoncho level in front of Itachi. “Interesting little bauble,” he commented as he pulled a ring off Kisame's left ring finger. “Imagine if that got caught on something, and I see you're wearing one as well,” he noted, and slipped it into a pocket before he picked up the Kisame's bandage-covered sword, the Samehada. “What is their significance, Itachi-chan?” he asked.

“Only the leader really knows,” Itachi answered blandly. “Please excuse me Sempai, but since you have managed to kill my partner, I really must withdraw and report to the leader that I will likely be unable to capture the kyuubi at this time.”

“You're not excused,” Sasuke's voice cut in sharply from behind Itachi. “Aniki.”

“Oh, hello Otouto,” Itachi greeted, turning to see his little brother. “Have you become stronger?”

“I have,” Sasuke answered, his words whispering in Itachi's ear from behind as he dug the kunai in his hand sharply into his brother's chest, through the ribs and into the heart.

“Sasuke,” Itachi breathed as his eyes opened wide in shock from the attack. “Oh, Otouto, you have done well,” he said as he fell, obvious pride in his voice along with the unavoidable pain, and coughed up blood when he hit the ground. “Take my eyes, Sasuke. You will have the Eternal Mangekyou, and never have to fear the deterioration of your sight.” Itachi coughed up some more blood, but when he looked up at his little brother again, there was such pride and love shining in his red eyes. “Sasuke. I'm sorry for the pain I caused you,” he said, and coughed again. “Sasuke, I- I didn't slay our clan alone. I could -” Itachi hacked another bloody cough. “I could never have killed the children. I had-” another cough, “- orders to kill the elders and father. They were -” he hacked, and spat out the blood that filled his mouth. “Plotting a revolt. Madara killed the rest,” he said, and coughed some more, straining for breath, straining to stay alive and convey this last message rather than simply accept his death. “Be careful, Otouto,” he begged. “I love you, and want you to be strong. If you -” Itachi again coughed and hacked and had to spit out the blood in his mouth. “- wish to kill Madara, you must be stronger than I ever was.”

“Aniki,” Sasuke said softly, and knelt by his brother's side, uncaring that he was kneeling in his brother's blood, just so long as he was by Itachi's side as these truths came out at last. “I forgive you,” he said, and brought up a hand covered in healing green chakra even as his eyes changed, developing the Mangekyou Sharingan as he quietly, desperately prayed he could save his brother from the death he had just inflicted. “We will kill this Madara together,” he insisted softly. “We're stronger when we aren't alone, when we have someone to protect.”

“ _Life_ ,” Cloud incanted from behind Sasuke, tapping into the magic of one of the materia in his bracer. “ _Regen_ ,” he continued, jumping from the lowest spell on the materia to the highest, skipping the one in the middle. The first spell made sure that Itachi wouldn't die. The second made sure that his recovery wasn't _too_ fast, so that he wouldn't run away.

“Sensei, arigato,” Sasuke said gratefully.  
Cloud nodded. “Where's the rest of your team?” he asked.

“Naruto is training with Shodai-sama,” Sasuke reported. “Something about Uzumaki techniques?”

Cloud nodded in understanding. “Shodai-sama's wife was an Uzumaki,” he supplied.

“Ah,” Sasuke said in acceptance. “And Sakura is sparring with her parents,” he finished.

“Very well,” Cloud said, and looked down at the two bodies on the street in front of his house. One dead, the other near-dead but recovering. “Bring him inside,” he ordered. “I'll perform the surgery to swap your eyes, and then we'll go see Nidaime-sama. He doesn't have a high opinion of the Uchiha for personal reasons, but I will vouch for you both.”

“Arigato, Sensei,” Sasuke said, and bowed to Cloud briefly before he bent and slung his brother over his shoulders.

Cloud collected any valuables Kisame had on his person – weapons, scrolls, jewellery and the like – and then burned him on the spot with a katon jutsu. Kisame left behind the pungent smell of burnt seafood, rather than the foul and permeating smell of burnt human flesh, which made Cloud snort in mild amusement before he headed inside after the Uchiha brothers.

~oOo~

“Nidaime-sama,” Cloud said formally as he stood in the Hokage office with the two young Uchiha men who had just enjoyed/suffered through a surgery (he'd made it as painless as he possibly could, but personal experience had Cloud firmly believing that it was impossible to 'enjoy' a surgery) that saw them swapping eyeballs with each other. It had been very successful, especially once he'd shot each of them with an Esuna and a Cure3. “I have information that Madara is still alive and plotting.”

Tobirama sighed. “Of course the bastard is,” he grumbled. “This information come from them?” he asked with a jerk of his chin in the direction of Sasuke and Itachi.

“From me, Hokage-sama,” Itachi answered, and stepped forward to kneel in front of the desk.

“Sempai,” Tobirama said lowly.

“I vouch for both of them,” Cloud answered. “They're loyal Konoha shinobi who put the needs of their village and comrades before their own desires.”

Tobirama huffed a bit, but nodded in acceptance. “Very well,” he allowed. “What do you want to do about it?” he asked the two Uchiha in a no-nonsense, businesslike tone.

“It's a mess left behind by the Uchiha, Hokage-sama,” Sasuke said plainly. “It seems only right that what is left of the Uchiha clean it up. Of course, we won't be able to do it alone.”

Tobirama nodded. “Glad you know it,” he answered. “Alright. I want a written report with all the details we don't have the time to actually _discuss_ right now,” he said, a scowl forming on his face. “Damn paperwork, springing up out of nowhere. Never had it when _I_ was Hokage,” he grumbled. “Just mission requests and reports. Supplies were each shinobi's own business to procure.”

Cloud chuckled at his old friend. “But paperwork like this means that we haven't had to worry about war until the other week when Orochimaru invaded,” he pointed out. “Every other Kage is buried in the stuff too, and doesn't have time to make war.”

The Nidaime scowled at Cloud. “I'm nominating _you_ for the position of 'Fifth',” he threatened.

Cloud shrugged. “I told you about the business I ran, didn't I?” he countered. “I managed, even if I was just scraping by. That was back before I could do clones that could help me with the paperwork though.”

The scowl fell off the Nidaime's face and was replaced by an expression of shock. Then he hit himself in the head. “Clones!” he exclaimed.

Cloud chuckled.

“You, out,” Tobirama ordered, finger pointed at Cloud. “And take those two with you.” He turned to Itachi, who stood to receive his orders. “Written report on my desk within the week,” he instructed, then turned to Sasuke. “And an attack plan and a list of which shinobi you want to help you and why,” he finished. “Go!”

The blonde and his two raven-haired companions saluted and left.

~oOo~

Team Seven weren't his students any more, no, now they were a chuunin team being led by Kakashi Hatake, and each one of them had, in their own way despite still all being together, stepped up into something of a spotlight as they killed stupidly strong enemies against ridiculously impossible odds, among other incredible things. Cloud wasn't there when they did those things, but Kakashi had kept in touch with him and informed him that when they'd killed Madara (or any of the other stupidly strong enemies that had crossed their paths for that matter), that they'd done it using the simple techniques that Cloud had taught them back when they were genin.

Tobirama _had_ nominated Cloud for Godaime, just as he'd threatened to, but the Daimyo had no idea who Cloud was, and if he hadn't ever heard of a shinobi, then there was no way he'd accept that he was good enough to hold the post of 'leader of Konoha'. Leaders of Hidden Villages, the Daimyo insisted, needed to have a _reputation_. Tobirama had grit his teeth against saying that anybody who knew Cloud Strife knew that the reason he didn't have a reputation was because everybody who lived to speak of what he'd done was too damn scared to. He grit his teeth against saying it because he was counted among the number that was too scared as well.

So Jiraiya was dispatched to fetch back Tsunade for the role instead. She even came willingly when she was told that her grandfather and great-uncle were both in Konoha, brought back to life. It had been an initially tearful reunion, followed by a couple of harsh lectures about running away from the hard stuff, then more hugs. Once they got through that, they had a week of getting Tsunade properly settled in to the office. Then it was more tears as the Shodai and the Nidaime performed the release for the technique that had brought them back to life, and returned to the Pure World once more.

The bodies of the two Oto genin that had been sacrificed to bring Hashirama and Tobirama back to life were given an honourable burial.

As all this happened, Cloud carefully faded into the background of Konoha life once more, back to where he'd been before he'd been given Team Seven. He did his missions quietly, quickly, efficiently. A mercenary for hire, just as Zack had planned way back when, but with a much better manager than running off and doing it on his own. There was even a health plan, in the event he ever got hurt worse than he could deal with himself. Hell, there was a _retirement_ plan, not that he'd ever take advantage of it. He just kept on going, one mission at a time, moving from one set of shadows to the next until the Seventh Hokage called him in to a jounin meeting and asked him how he felt about the idea of taking a genin team.


End file.
